


Lick Your Heart (And Taste Your Health)

by sysrae



Series: Scar Tissue [2]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Bad coping mechanisms, Coming Out, Contemplation of Self-Harm, Dealing with Past Abuse, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Trauma, Kent has PTSD, Las Vegas Aces, M/M, PTSD, Past Child Abuse, Personal Growth, Some D/s elements, bros learning to be better, literally the worst roadie, many OCs - Freeform, references to past abuse, sequel fic, slightly undernegotiated kink, tags to be updated as chapters post, well-meaning boys who nonetheless make shitty decisions, what happens when abusers come back
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-04-05 12:54:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 46,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14044698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sysrae/pseuds/sysrae
Summary: The thing is, Kent's not used to being stable.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a direct sequel to Scar Tissue (That I Wish You Saw), following on roughly three months after its ending and featuring many established OCs. It will deal with the same themes as the first story, but in some more detail: I'll try to put appropriate trigger warnings in the endnotes on every chapter and in the tags, but please let me know if you think I've missed something. 
> 
> Title is another lyric from the RHCP song Scar Tissue, because that's the theme of this 'verse.

The thing is, Kent’s not used to being stable: not mentally, not emotionally, and certainly not romantically. Ever since he came out and Day came into his life, he’s been better, sharper, _happier_ than he ever remembers being, and some days that leaves him terrified that it’s all going to go away again, but he still has no practical framework for how that might happen. His fears, when they come, are specific, singular events: what if Day leaves him or he gets too hurt to play anymore or something bad happens to Kit, _what if, what if_? The smaller stuff, he’s managing with therapy and healthy coping mechanisms; which is to say, with the help of the people around him. It doesn’t occur to him to worry about temporary holes in his support system, even overlapping ones, because why would it? A briefly depleted system is still vastly better than having no system at all.

“You’re sure you’ll be all right?” Day asks, thumb stroking Kent’s cheek. “I’ll still be checking my phone in the morning and just before bed, if you need to call or text. It’s not like I’ll be on total lockdown.”

Kent laughs, tucking his chin into the crook of Day’s neck, free hand skating up his ribs. They’re tangled in bed together, warm and soft in their late-night afterglow. “The whole point of you going to this unplugged thing is to get some writing done without distractions. No phone, no internet.” He grins, letting his fingertips graze just a little bit lower. “No boyfriend.” 

Day shivers appreciatively. “You are _very_ distracting.”

“So I’ve been told.”

Kent tilts his head up to kiss him, and Day kisses back. They’ve been together for nearly three months, and the gentleness of moments like this still overwhelms him: kissing for kissing’s sake, touching because they can, because they want to. Privacy without shame or secrecy. He never knew he could have a life like this. 

“It’s only,” Day says, when they finally pull apart again, “I know that Nadia’s at her conference, too. I just don’t want you to feel like you’re completely cut off from us both.”

“I know,” says Kent. Nadia is his therapist, and while some tiny, bitter part of him still baulks at her necessity, her help in processing his past has been invaluable. “But she gets back a couple of days before you do, even. Honestly, it’s just another roadie. I’ll be fine, _cariño_.”

The endearment still sits shyly on his tongue, but the light in Day’s eyes whenever he says it makes Kent’s heart grow three sizes.

“Okay,” Day breathes, “okay,” and then Kent rolls him over, slinging an arm around Day’s waist and kissing across his shoulders, settling them both. They fall asleep together soon after, Kent’s cheek pressed to the divots of Day’s spine, and stay that way until morning.

 

*

 

It’s not that Kent’s worried about the Aces clinching a playoff berth, even though they’ve taken a few knocks of late; it’s just that the Western Conference is tight as a fucking drum, as per usual, and late season roadies have a way of feeling like sudden death contests even when you’re winning.

They play the Preds first up, and lose – which, they’re a good team, there’s no shame in it, but Tennessee is nothing if not a red state, and the level of hate Kent gets from the crowd whenever he sets foot on the ice is worse than he’d expected. It’s his first game in Nashville since coming out, and it’s not like he hasn’t copped homophobic bullshit from crowds in other cities – or on the ice, even; Getzlaf is and always will be exactly that sort of douchebag, even if he has learned to keep it down around the refs – but the noisy vitriol of it still takes him aback. Two fans are ejected for trying to throw bottles at him, and even though neither projectile makes it over the glass, Kent still has to put on his brightest, blandest Good Gay smile for the postgame media and explain that, no, his sexuality isn’t why they lost, tough crowds are part of the NHL and sometimes you just don’t get enough shots on net.  

Subban and Josi come by the locker room afterwards to apologise, even though it’s hardly their fault, but Kent appreciates the gesture anyway, and says as much to the pair of them. Showered and dressed, he holds his phone and wonders if he ought to text Day about it all, but ultimately decides there’s no need: Kent feels fine, his team has his back, and he doesn’t want Day breaking the first rule of his writing retreat right off the bat and Googling sports news just because of some drunken assholes.

“Fuck those guys,” says Yaks cheerfully, thumping Kent on the shoulder. “They only throw because they so ugly, they worried people think they catfish otherwise and throw them instead.”

Kent laughs, as do the other Aces in earshot, and they head back to the hotel.

Their next game is in Tampa, against the Lightning. It’s hard and fast and they lose in OT, which is still a vital point in the standings but not the win they wanted. The real issue is that Racker takes a hard puck to the mask late in the third period, and even though he seemed fine to keep playing at the time, he’s showing clear concussion symptoms by morning. The coaches and trainers confer, first together and then with Kent. Their decision is unanimous: they’re ahead enough in points that nobody wants to risk Racker’s health when he was due for a rest soon anyway. Instead, he’ll stay put and hopefully heal sooner rather than later, Judo will get the next few road starts, and they’ll call up Remy from the AHL to play backup.

After some internal debate, Kent errs on the side of texting Day to keep him in the loop: apart from anything else, Racker and Zora are officially trying a long-distance relationship, albeit a partially open one, which makes his injury more personally relevant than if it had happened to one of the other guys. He’s not expecting an instantaneous answer – Day is over on the west coast, which means he’s a few hours behind and likely still sleeping – but he holds his phone and stares at it hopefully for a minute anyway, until he remembers he’s got to go tell the team, too. They take it about as well as can be expected, and then there’s a more-rushed-than-usual flurry to get to the airport as they all trip over themselves trying to tell their hurt goalie good luck.

Kent makes himself put his phone away for the whole flight, only checking it once they’ve safely landed in Philly. Sure enough, there’s a string of reassuring texts from Day, thanking Kent for letting him know, asking to be told if there’s any updates on Racker’s condition (though he’d probably get them just as fast from Zora), reiterating that it’s all right for Kent to contact him despite how slow he’ll be to answer, and a final _I miss you already_ followed by a string of hearts.

The pain in Kent’s chest is a sudden, physical thing, like blocking a slapshot. _I miss you too_ he texts back, along with a truly superfluous number of heart, rainbow and hockey-stick emojis, then forces himself, once again, to put his phone out of sight.

Playing in Philadelphia is always a crapshoot: the home crowd is as likely to turn on the Flyers as their opponents during a heavy game, and when Hells takes an accidental but nonetheless gruesome high stick practically right off the opening faceoff, Kent knows it’s going to be an ugly one. Hells is dripping blood from a jagged cut over his left eye, startled as he skates off to get it stitched, an angry Gudas is swearing as he’s sent to the box for a double minor, and enforcers on both teams are eyeing each other as the puck drops again at centre ice.

What unfolds is a jagged, angry shitshow in three acts. Trying to goad the Aces into a matching penalty, some AHL callup for the Flyers decides the best and easiest way to do that is throw slurs at Kent. The refs don’t catch it, but Kent sure as hell does – as does Yaks. Ordinarily, the Aces have a rule about ignoring small fry looking for easy bait, but after what happened in Nashville, Yaks is already furious. The callup realises about a split second before Yaks drops his gloves that he’s maybe bitten off more than he can chew, but by then it’s too late: Yaks throws a furious haymaker at the dumb kid’s head, and whatever else can be said of him, the callup is at least smart enough to stick to his plan and keep his own gloves on.

The kid takes the head-hit and two hard body-blows from Yaks before the refs get in there to break it up. Yaks yells at them about what was said, arguing the callup should get an instigator penalty or unsportsmanlike conduct at the very least, but the zebras didn’t hear it and can’t act on it. Yaks goes to the box with two for interference and another two for roughing, the kid goes to get himself checked out, and the resulting four-on-four gets hard and dirty fast. The crowd is screaming: every check is finished hard, every excuse for a covert slash or cross-check taken, and either the refs have already given up the game as a bad thing or there’s just too much for them to catch, because the whistle never comes.

Swoops feeds Kent a beauty pass; he one-times it at the goal, has Neuvirth beat cold, but it dings off the pipe like mockery. The Aces scramble after it, but the Flyers clear the zone just as Gudas finally gets out of the box, and suddenly they’re a man down on the wrong side of a breakout play.

Judo is good, but Giroux is better. The Flyers score, the goal horn sounds, and when Yaks skulks out of the box himself, he looks at Kent in torturous hangdog apology. 

“Don’t,” Kent tells him. “We’ll get it back.”

And they do. It’s chippy and hellish and Kent gets elbowed hard into the boards in the second, but even with both benches rotating in and out of the penalty box and goals going in at both ends, somehow the Aces always manage to claw back their fragile lead. They win 6-5 after sixty graunching minutes, Gudas and Yaks dropping gloves out of sheer rage even as the buzzer sounds, and a half-brawl ensues as everyone piles in to pull them out.

In the locker room afterwards, the Aces are equal parts keyed up and exhausted. Coach gives them a short, fiery speech about how they played hard and won a hell of a game, telling them to keep the anger and use it next time, but he’s not saying anything they don’t already know, and he reads the room well enough to leave it at that.     

“That’s gonna be a hell of a scar,” Swoops says to Hells, indicating his eyebrow. “You’re lucky Gudas let you keep your teeth.”

“Next time, I take his,” Yaks mutters darkly, already icing his knuckles.

Kent is bruised to hell from the elbow hit, but makes himself walk the room, see how everyone’s doing. He makes a point of praising Judo, who really came through for them over those endless minutes of penalty kills – even if he did let in five goals, it was off an abnormally high number of shots. He talks to Hells, too, and Yaks, and most of the rest of the team, which means he’s one of the last in the showers and definitely the last out of them. He savours the water, not looking forward to the moment when he has to reclaim his phone but not call Day, like he desperately want to do, and is therefore surprised to find Swoops waiting for him when he finally emerges.

“Want to grab a drink?” Swoops asks.

“ _Please_ ,” says Kent fervently, hurrying to dress. “Anyone else coming?”

“Hells went on ahead with Javvy and Fender. They’ll find someplace quiet.” He makes a fondly exasperated face. “It’s their special power.”

“No Yaks and Petty?”

“Last I heard, they were planning something Russian involving terrible vodka and bad decisions.”

Kent chuckles wearily. “I’m surprised you didn’t go with them.”

“Mads did, which ought to be entertaining. Still.” Swoops hesitates, then says, a little more awkwardly, “I figured you might need the company.”

Kent feels a sudden rush of affection for his winger. They haven’t really talked about Day being out of contact, but it matters that Swoops, disaster adult that he is, still understands the impact.

They leave the arena together, call an uber and wait for it, catching up on game highlights from other matches while they wait.

“You excited to play the Rangers?” Swoops asks on the ride to the bar, apropos nothing. “Or to be in New York again?”

Kent shrugs. “I don’t know. Yes? A little?” He gives Swoops a bemused look. “Why do you ask?”

“Just, it’s our first game there since you came out. Hometown crowd, all that stuff.” He makes a face. “And New York is _not_ Nashville.”

Kent snorts. “You don’t say.”

“I meant –”

“I know what you meant.” He sighs, because Swoops really is a dense heterosexual, but at least he’s trying – and besides, he’s also taking Kent for a nice, quiet drink with proper adults because Day is somewhere unSkypeable, which means he deserves a better answer than silence. “Seeing rainbow flags in the stands would be nice, I guess. And the Rangers aren’t the Ducks, they won’t be assholes about it. I don’t know. New York is… complicated.”

“Don’t worry, cap,” says Swoops, exaggerating a wink. “We’ll get another win.”

Kent laughs, wincing a little at the pull in his ribs. “Let’s hope it hurts less than this one did.”

 

*

 

They fly into New York the next morning, the distance from Philadelphia short enough that there’s no need to get up at the asscrack of dawn, thank god. They’ve got a day off after the Rangers game before they play the Isles, which means three days in the one location, which means Kent actually bothers to unpack his suitcase. Having done so, he debates but ultimately decides against sending a photo of the newly-inhabited hotel room to Day, even though he normally would, and then heads out with the team for warmups at Madison Square Garden.

Swoops sits beside him on the bus, vibrating with suspicious energy. Kent squints at him.

“Aren’t you supposed to be rationing your coffee intake?”

“I only had one!”

“You had two,” says Hells, not bothering to turn around from the seat in front. “I was watching.”

“Two shots of espresso in one cup does not count as two coffees, you ungrateful infant,” says Swoops, trying and failing to swat at the rookie’s head.

“You have zero chill, bro,” Mads deadpans. He’s sitting in the row across from them, smirking just a little. “I know it’s a low bar, but still: your rookie is cooler than you.”

As Swoops, Hells and Mads get caught up in a cycle of chirping, Kent takes a moment to study Mads. They’ve played together since Kent’s rookie year, and he’d be lying if he said that everything that went down with Danno hadn’t made things weird at times, but Mads – like Swoops; like their coach, even – is trying to do better. Kent shies away from thinking about their encounter outside Mary’s office that first day back after his injury, but it haunts the edges of his thoughts regardless. Danno is gone, so disgraced in his homophobic fall that no other team in the NHL either could or would to take him. The KHL, of course, had no such scruples; it shouldn’t have come as that much of a shock, all things considered, but Yaks and Petty took it hard enough that mentioning him somehow became even more verboten than it was already.

But Danno, while a fuckup and bigot, had still been Mads’s best friend for years, both on the team and off. Kent knows Mads still sees Mary about it – or about something, at any rate – and he hopes it helps; he’s always tried to keep tabs on where his guys are at, but it’s harder with Mads, now, and it leaves Kent feeling guilty that he doesn’t feel guiltier about letting that be an excuse to keep his distance. Now, though, listening to his easy banter with Swoops and Hells, he feels a strange sense of relief to realise that, whatever else has happened, Mads is still one of them, still an Ace and willing to work for it. Yet at the same time, he also can’t remember the last time Mads joined in like this, either. He’s never been the loudest guy in the room – he and Danno were always too much of a unit for that – but it’s strange to realise that Mads, never the most contemplative person, has developed a habit of quiet observation: still speaking from time to time, but less often and more thoughtfully than before.   

 _Is that a good thing or a bad thing?_ Kent wonders. He’d like to believe it’s the former, and it’s not as if Mads has done anything recently to make him think the latter, but not knowing leaves him uneasy.

 He’s still lost in thought when they pull up at the Garden, not really paying attention as Lucy, their new social media intern, flits around with her iPhone out, documenting their passage from bus to locker room. There are camerapeople inside, too, with mics and proper equipment, following to film them as they file through the halls, but that’s not wholly unusual, either: the Rangers shoot their own PR stuff, too, and as nobody from Aces management looks the least bit spooked, Kent mentally shrugs and ignores it all as they head to the locker room.

He’s pulling off his scarf, hat and gloves at his stall when he becomes aware of a vague yet purposeful susurrus in the room behind him. He looks to Swoops, his locker-neighbour, for an explanation, only to find that Swoops is grinning stupidly at him.

“Surprise,” he says, cocking his head at the doorway, and Kent has a split-second to wonder what the hell he’s talking about when he sees the woman standing on the threshold. The cameras are back, pointed squarely at her and Kent both, and it’s only when she takes two steps forwards into the locker room proper that Kent shudders with recognition. She’s older now, of course – he hasn’t seen her in person since before the draft – but her lean face and hazel eyes are the same, even if there is a bit more grey in her bobbed brown hair than he remembers.

Andrea Chastain. His foster mother; the last one he had before the Q.

“Hi, Kent,” she says, and god, oh god, Kent is not prepared for this, he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s feeling but there’s cameras everywhere and no time to process anything in a way that won’t show on his face. He looks imploringly at Swoops, desperate for intervention, but Swoops just gestures him forwards like Kent is a nervous peewee player before his first tournament, and that’s when it hits him that Swoops thinks this is a wonderful thing because _Swoops arranged it_ , Swoops brought his old foster mother here as some sort of fucking _surprise present_ , because – because why? Why the fuck is this _happening_? Kent lurches forwards like a deer through a tailgate, suddenly remembering what they’d talked about on the way to the bar, and he wants to laugh until his throat bleeds only slightly more than he wants to murder his kind-hearted, idiot winger, because of _course_ Swoops thinks that Kent being a closeted athlete is the only reason he doesn’t have a relationship with this woman, and now that he’s out that can easily change, like something out of a movie. Of fucking _course_.

“Hi, Andrea,” Kent croaks. They look at each other, and it ought to be a relief to see she’s just as nervous as he is, but all it does is ratchet his own pulse higher. His hands clench and unclench at his sides; he doesn’t know what to do with them.

“I know it’s been a long time,” says Andrea, voice shaking only slightly. “And I know we never had much claim on you. But I just… I wanted to say – I wanted to tell you how proud we all are. Of you. Of everything you’ve done.”

And she leans in, slowly, and hugs him.

Kent hugs back out of startled reflex, throat closed up with shock. He shuts his eyes and tries not to crush her – she’s so small against him; he’s not using to being this close to people who don’t have hockey muscle – and shoves every whirling thought in his head in a box. There’s applause from his teammates, and Kent tries not to hate them for it – they don’t know any better – and then he straightens up and she steps back, and he thinks, for one glorious moment, that it’s all over. Then:

“Richard couldn’t make it,” says Andrea, referring to her husband, “and he sends his best, but I know you never spent as much time with him anyway, so –” and she turns, making a beckoning gesture towards the doorway, “– this felt more appropriate anyway.” And then, more softly, “I’ve never seen him happier than when you came out, I think.”

And then _he_ steps in, and time freezes.

Kent isn’t breathing. Kent doesn’t think he’s breathing doesn’t think he’s in his body but he’s staring through its dumb eyes anyway, watching as a broad-shouldered man with thinning hair in a button-up shirt moves to take Andrea’s place. He’s older now, hair greyer and skin more lined and his jaw with a bit more jowel, but Kent still has nightmares about that sharp-boned, blue-eyed face; he’d know it anywhere.

Unlike Andrea, this man doesn’t hesitate to step straight into Kent’s personal space; to cup a calloused, work-worn hand around his nape and squeeze just so, pulling Kent close for a hug that he’d now have to fight and flail to get out of. And Kent doesn’t quite hug him back, because his body won’t work, but he doesn’t thrash and jerk away like he desperately wants to, either, because fear goes deep and compliance deeper and everywhere there are cameras rolling, capturing this unclean, awful sight without knowing what name it owns.

“Hello, Ken-doll,” Gary murmurs, smiling.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings in the endnotes.

_"Be good for me, now. We’ve got company.”_

Kent hears the words in his head, the flashback so sudden and so intense that he almost goes to his knees. As if he can sense this, Gary gives Kent’s neck a pat and lets him go, but he’s still so close, so _fucking_ close that Kent can smell his sweat and cologne and hates that he knows the combination, hates the fact that he’s standing here when he ought to be able to fucking _move_ , but he can’t, he _can’t_ and he doesn’t know _why_ except that he _does_ , and he hates himself and the situation all over again, a terrible psychic loop.

“Just wanted to say I’m proud of you,” says Gary, in a carrying voice – for the cameras, Jesus fuck, there are _cameras_ here – and there’s something else that comes afterwards, some words in a language and order that Kent ought to be able to comprehend, except that he can’t and doesn’t because he’s not in the part of his body that understands words, right now. He’s the hot, tight knot of shame and rage and terror clogging his own dumb throat, and he keeps upright because he has to, and maybe he says something or Andrea does, or _someone_ , he doesn’t know, but suddenly he’s posing for photos, Andrea on one side of him and Gary on the other, his big hand pressing heavy in the small of Kent’s back.

His thumb strokes across Kent’s game day suit: too small to be seen, too big to be missed. A seismic violation.

Kent maybe shows his teeth, he thinks. A habitual rictus. He’s sweating when Andrea hugs him again – a parting hug – and it’s only this basic social cue that lets him brace for when Gary does likewise, greying stubble brushing too hard across Kent’s cheek to be fully accidental.

“You grew up good,” Gary whispers, and Kent feels those words reverberate through his bones like a poltergeist’s curse.

_You grew up good._

_You grew up good._

_You grew up._

_You._

_You._

_You._

He falls into himself, a ball of thought dropped deep in the well of his body. He gets through the next few minutes without any conscious recollection of doing so, a sleepwalker waking. When he regains his faculties, Andrea, Gary and the camera crews are gone: he’s standing in front of his things again, staring fixedly at the now-closed door to the locker room, while Swoops talks on beside him. It takes Kent a moment more to realise that Swoops is, in fact, talking _to_ him, though Kent has no idea how long that’s been happening or what’s been said. He tries to tune in, and instantly wishes he hadn’t. 

“– said I should’ve told you beforehand, but Andrea wanted it to be a surprise, which is why I made sure they wouldn’t be staying for too long, in case it was too much – Parser?” He breaks off suddenly, frowning when Kent turns to stare at him.

“Who?” Kent asks. It’s the only word he can get out: he feels like he hasn’t spoken in decades.

Swoops blinks. “Who what?”

“Who said you should’ve told me?”

“Racker,” says Swoops, a furrow of confusion forming between his brows. “But it worked out all right, so –”

“Who else knew?”

“Besides coach and PR, you mean? Just him, me and Javvy, but we told the others something was up last night.”

Kent can’t speak. He looks at Swoops, his friend – his well-meaning, meddling, _fuckup_ friend – and almost blacks out with how much he wants to hurt him for this. The magnitude of the betrayal, albeit unknowingly made, is so absolute he has no words for it: only feelings he cannot, under any circumstances, transmute into actions. He thinks he might be shaking, and he can’t explain, not here and now. He needs to get the fuck out, away from Swoops and Javvy and everyone else who didn’t think to tell him this was happening.

“I need a moment,” Kent says, the words coming out of their own accord. He turns on his heel and walks away before Swoops can answer, hurrying blindly through the familiar unfamiliarity of Madison Square Garden. He can’t go outside, can’t afford to be seen or heard or found, and somehow those two impulses eventually lead him to an employee bathroom, a single-door, single-stall affair that locks from the inside.

Kent turns the lock and collapses down, his back pressed into the corner. What hits him then isn’t quite a panic attack, which would almost be preferable. Instead, it’s a roaring sequence of memories, sensate and visceral, Gary’s hands and voice and scent recalled in detail, over and over, a dozen, a hundred different things he wished he’d forgotten, but hasn’t. He doesn’t know when he starts crying, but notices when it turns to sobbing, violent and erratic enough to rattle the lungs in his chest. Coming to terms with Gary’s abuse has meant recounting it in therapy, dredging up the details of things he’s spent over a decade repressing. Under Nadia’s guidance, he’s been learning to work through it all, but right now, in a horrible irony, it means that his very worst memories are closer to the surface than they’ve ever been in his adult life, brutal and raw in their clarity; in his newfound understanding of exactly how bad they are.

 _I let him touch me again,_ Kent thinks. _I let him put his hands on me I let him touch I let him_ touch –

He gags and doubles over, trying not to retch. The ugly roiling all through his stomach feels enough like drunkenness that he’s able, almost, to pretend that’s what’s wrong with him, using the lie as an anchor-point from which to summon rational thought.

 _I have to get up. I have to play._ And then, in a wave of acidic self-loathing: _Nobody can know._

He tries to make himself stand, but the flashbacks won’t stop and his body won’t start and he’s having trouble breathing through the sobs.

_Help. I need help._

He fumble-shoves a hand into his suit pocket. Phone. He still has his phone. He pulls it out, hands shaking and so sweaty that his thumbprint won’t work to unlock it. It takes him six tries to tap in the code, but when he finally makes it work, it’s all he can do to stare at the screen until it goes black again.

He doesn’t know how to talk about this; he doesn’t have the words. It’s not like being in therapy, where everything is far away and he’s safe in Nadia’s office. This is different. This is every scar torn bloodily open, and maybe it ought to be simple to send a text saying “Gary’s back” and let Day or Nadia understand the implications, but both of them are interstate, and he needs them _here_ , he needs for this to never have happened, he needs to get back to the locker room and ready for warmups and ready to _play_ – 

Nadia’s at her conference. Day is on retreat. Even if he calls or texts them now, they won’t be at their phones. And _now_ is when he needs them, _now_ is a crisis he can’t postpone until his people can help him cope, because his other people, his _team_ , need him first.

Kent squeezes his eyes shut, hot tears clumping his lashes. Day would want him to leave a message, he knows that. Day would teleport here if he could, because Day has never failed to come when Kent has needed him: not ever, not once since their first real meeting. And Kent’s a professional athlete, he knows all streaks end eventually, but the thought of it being this time of all times when Day doesn’t answer, even knowing the reason for it… he can’t deal with that right now, not on top of everything else.

_You grew up good._

Kent curls inwards, gripping his shins. His old coping habits are toxic, he knows that, but he doesn’t have time for Nadia’s systems, and every discussion they’ve had about triggers has focussed on different, more distant scenarios than this. He only has himself, and the longer he stays here working it out, the more explaining he’s going to have to do to his coach and his team about why he’s acting strangely.

_Or I could just hurt myself and say it was an accident. They’d understand that, at least._

It’s meant to be a sarcastic thought, but there’s a bottle of bleach in his eyeline under the bathroom sink, and when his fingers twitch in subconscious anticipation, Kent goes cold all over. Terrified, he jams his hands behind his back, the way he used to do as a kid whenever he thought about opening the car door on the freeway. It makes him think of Gary’s hands, too, and more than hands, _weight cock voice laugh and a roofied drink and waking up sore but it’s just more bruises and hockey has lots of those, doesn’t it, and cottonmouth from medicine, too, and really, Ken-doll, I know you liked it, you’ll like it more next time –_

Kent scrambles over to the sink and vomits up everything he ate on the plane from Philly. He keeps both hands on the porcelain so he doesn’t reach for the bottle of bleach, not even to wash the stink away, and does what Nadia’s spent months teaching him not to do, which is shove his worst thoughts in a mental box and lock the lid and hide the key, and whisper, “I’m fine, I need to be fine,” until he can make himself function. He runs the tap, washes his mess away, then finds the plug and brims the sink with water. Taking a breath, he shoves his face in and keeps it there until the combination of _cold_ and _airless_ makes his dumb mammalian body rethink its priorities and flood his brain with oxygen, overriding his feelings with a biochemical rush.

He keeps his face under as long as he can, then jerks upright, gasping. Water drips down his cheeks; he scrubs it away with a paper towel, ignoring the redness of his eyes, the jerkiness of his movements. _I’m fine. I can get through today. I’m fine._

Kent rinses his mouth and spits. He empties the sink. He doesn’t meet his gaze in the mirror.

He goes back to the locker room.

By the time he gets there, everyone else is on the ice. He changes and joins them. He makes his mind blank of everything except hockey, and if he flinches or shakes a little every time a teammate checks him or pats him on the back, his armour hides it from notice. He catches a few odd looks for being more curt than usual, but nobody outright asks him how he’s doing, which – well. That’s fine. He’s fine, he can play, that’s what matters. Let them think he was overwhelmed by Andrea’s visit in a good way and is now embarrassed about it; that’s clearly what Swoops thinks, judging by the softly knowing smile he keeps shooting Kent and which Kent pretends not to notice.

Warmups are fine. He can play.

What he apparently can’t do is undress in a roomful of guys without wanting to throw up again. It’s stupid, he _knows_ it’s stupid, but his fingers fumble each piece of gear and he doesn’t join in the pre-game chirping and conversation, sweating more than he ought to be as he strips down and flees for the showers. Which are communal. Which is something he’s dealt with every single practice and gameday since he first started playing hockey, but which, right now, is making him so fucking tense he can feel his own pulse in his tongue.

When he comes to get changed, the trainer notices he’s walking more stiffly than usual. Asks if he’s pulled a muscle, if he needs a massage. The thought of lying down near-naked and letting a grown man touch him is so contextually horrific that Kent can’t speak for three full seconds.

“No,” he chokes out. “No, I’m fine,” and flees to get changed without making eye contact.

He sits on the back of the team bus back to the hotel, jammed in the far corner with his earbuds in, blasting music so loudly it’s practically making his teeth vibrate. It’s not his usual spot or his usual behaviour, and Kent sees the moment when Swoops, walking down the centre aisle, clocks this as being strange enough to merit a conversation. Kent freezes like a deer in headlights, realising too late that he’s trapped himself in a corner, and is trying desperately to think of something, anything to say to get out of the resultant conversation when Mads, of all people, intervenes.

“Jeff, hey,” he says, reaching out and grabbing Swoops’s coat-cuff, holding him in place. “Can I talk to you about something?”

“Sure,” says Swoops, startled, and lets himself be pulled into a different seat. “What is it?”

“Just that drill, the one we were doing earlier –” Mads says, launching into a rehash of the morning’s play. His glance barely flicks over Kent as he reclaims his seat, Swoops now beside him, but somehow Kent knows, he _knows_ Mads did it on purpose, cut in to give him space, and he can’t even process the logic of that, but in the moment, he’s too grateful to wonder about it.

Back at the hotel dining room, he makes himself eat. He’s already feeling faint and lightheaded from warming up on a forcefully-emptied stomach, but it still takes effort to choke the food down. His teammates talk as much around the table as they usually do, but preoccupation with eating is as good an excuse as any to keep from joining in, and so long as Kent makes a show of nodding or smiling around each lumpen mouthful at the right junctures, he manages to stay relatively inconspicuous.

He gets through it, somehow. He goes to his room, alone – no roommate; the perks of captaincy – peels off his clothes and collapses onto the mattress, needing his pregame nap more badly than he ever has outside of playoffs. He’s so wrung out, he’s expecting to fall asleep instantly.

But he doesn’t. Now that he’s alone – now that he has time for traitor brain to fully process the day’s events – he finds himself stricken all over again. He wants Day so badly that it doubles him over, curled around a twisting ache in the pit of his stomach. Day would hold him; Day would talk him through it, somehow, make him feel like a person again, but Day isn’t here, and Kent can’t wait until after the game, when Day will be contactable, to get his shit together. The truth of his isolation hits him like a hammer-blow, and with that, the whole awful encounter with Gary replays in his head, every touch and word recalled in lurid detail –

Including what Gary said to him while he dissociated: the words he’d made himself hear as white noise in the moment.

_We’ll be at the game tonight. You’ll score for me, won’t you? Get me a goal for old time’s sake._

Gary will be at the game. Gary will watch Kent play hockey, in person, and if Kent scores – and he needs to score – then Gary will think it’s for him. It doesn’t matter that Kent won’t mean it that way: he’ll still be doing what Gary wants, which in Gary’s mind means that Kent is still, on some fundamental level, his.

_You grew up good._

Something creaks in the hotel hall outside Kent’s room, a footstep on carpeted floorboards. He’s out of bed in an instant, heart pounding as he stares at his door. It’s just a passing guest, of course it is, but god, how the fuck is he meant to sleep like this? He doesn’t know who his neighbours are, but if he screams himself awake from a nightmare, they’ll probably hear and Kent will have to explain himself and his teammates will know, they’ll _know_ how fucking scared and wrong and broken he is, because why else would he have stood there in the locker room and let Gary touch him all over again? The back of his neck where Gary gripped him seems to burn; Kent reaches up to scratch at it, nails scraping across his nape like he can dig the sensation out of himself if he just tries hard enough.

Kent gets into bed and gets out again. He scratches his neck, startles at every tiny noise the hotel makes, lies down again, twists and turns against the covers. Nothing helps. Finally, he gathers up an armful of pillows and makes his way to the bathroom, which is smaller and has a door whose lock, unlike the one on his room, can’t be opened by anyone with a keycard. He puts the pillows in the tub and climbs in with them, cocooning himself in a hard/soft nest, and has just reached some semblance of almost-comfort when he realises that his phone, and therefore his alarm, is still on the bedside table. He gets up, fetches it, comes back in. The tub is too small for him to stretch out properly, forcing him to lie in a cramped Z-shape with pillows filling in the blocks, but it’s better than the bed was. Safer.

He sleeps eventually, fitful and shallow. His dreams have barely had time to turn to nightmares when his alarm goes off, and he judders upright with grainy eyes and vilely cramped muscles from trying to nap in a fucking bathtub. He hugs himself and thinks of Day, and stifles one single, ugly sob at how much more he has to do before he can talk to him.

Functioning on autopilot, Kent gets back into his gameday suit and laughs, ugly and jagged, at the brittleness of his own reflection. There’s a crick in his neck and an itch in his skin and he doesn’t know how the fuck he’s going to play like this, when he doesn’t feel all the way human. He doesn’t feel _real_ , like the wrong word or touch could catapult him wholly out of his body. But he has to keep going. _Push off, skate through._

On the bus to the game, Mads sits next to Kent before Swoops can: another unasked-for blessing. Swoops looks annoyed and a little confused as he’s forced to head past to a different seat, but Javvy, walking behind him, glances at Kent with something like real concern. Hells does, too, and even gets as far as opening his mouth to speak when Mads shakes his head in negation. Hells hesitates, but whatever he sees on his captain’s face makes him keep walking, too.

Kent doesn’t say thank you; Mads doesn’t speak. Their silence is an ugly contagion spreading through the bus, and Kent is attuned enough to his team to know that it’s a bad thing, but not present enough in his body or heart to stop it.

Walking down the tunnel to the locker room, he starts to shake. He slows without meaning to, almost comes to a stop, and it’s only Petty knocking into his shoulder that gets him going again. Even so, he hesitates on the threshold, forcing himself to breathe evenly as he looks around for cameras. He’s the last one in, and his stomach churns at the necessity of once more taking his clothes off in this fucking room, where Gary stood; where Gary may as well still be standing, for how unsafe Kent feels.

“Parser?”

Kent lifts his head and stares flatly at Swoops, who’s changing in the neighbouring stall. He doesn’t say anything, which seems to catch Swoops off guard; he waits a beat, like he’s expecting some sort of verbal response, and when he doesn’t get one, he frowns and colours slightly.

“Uh. Listen, I don’t… like, maybe I’m wrong, but I’m starting to feel like you’re mad at me for, uh. For earlier?” He pauses hopefully. Kent says nothing, watching his winger’s face fall as he stumbles on again. “I mean, uh. I was trying to do something nice for you, but if I got that wrong, I’m sorry, and I just… I need to know that we’re still good, bro.” And then, when Kent turns away from him, “Well, are we?”

Hot rage bubbles in Kent’s chest. _No, we’re not fucking_ good, he wants to snarl back, but he can’t, he’s the goddamn captain at game time and he _can’t_ , but his mouth won’t shape the easy lie, either, and silence isn’t an option.

“We’re good to play,” he says at last. He doesn’t look at Swoops; just concentrates on undoing his buttons, taking each one slowly. It’s just a shirt, just his skin underneath. He does this every day.

Swoops inhales sharply. “Kent –”    

“ _We’re good to play_.” He says it again, more forcefully. “We have a game, and we’ll play it. That’s what matters.”

Swoops makes a pained, confused noise, but mercifully doesn’t try to prolong the conversation. Kent’s focus narrows to getting his gear on, resisting the urge to turn around every few seconds to check that he isn’t being watched. His neck is starting to hurt from his constant scratching, chafing against his collar, and it suddenly hits him all over again that Gary is out there in the stands. Waiting for Kent, like maybe he’s always been waiting.

Kent’s sweating by the time they make it onto the ice. He doesn’t remember a word of what coach or anyone else might’ve said in their pregame talk; the anthem passes in a blur, and now the game’s started, clean ice cutting under his skates as he chases after the puck.

Hockey. He can always play hockey, even when he’s broken, and for his first full shift, the festering cobwebs clear from his mind. Adrenaline takes over: he focusses on what’s happening, tracks the players; even manages half a smile for his lineys on the bench.

And then, at the start of his second shift, one of the Rangers d-men checks Kent into the glass in his own zone, not so hard as to constitute boarding, but keeping him pinned for just long enough that Kent can’t move and has nowhere to look but crowdwards.

And there’s Gary, rinkside, right next to Andrea. They’re both on their feet at the glass, clapping and smiling and shouting as they cheer Kent on, and Gary catches his eye, a knowing smile on his face as Kent shoves back against the check, and Kent –

Kent doesn’t know what happens next.

He’s heard stories about players who black out during games before; they all have. Back before the league got semi-serious about its concussion protocols, guys would take a hit to the head and keep on playing, sometimes even scoring a goal, and afterwards have no memory of the game. Kent isn’t concussed, but something similar must happen to him anyway, because all that he has of what comes next are fragments.

Shaking his head on the bench; negation, though he doesn’t know of what.

Gloves dropping as his fist connects with the side of a helmet.

Ice on his knuckles.

The goal horn, once, a sharp sound cutting through consciousness without context.

A crash of bodies into him, _thump thump thump_ ; the happy, unintelligible yells of teammates.

Stink. Shower. Suit. A daze.

And then he’s back in his hotel room, standing at the foot of his bed with no idea how the fuck he got there, no idea how much time has passed or what the score was, though he has a vague sense that they won. He looks at his hands, the knuckles taped and split – did he fight someone? – and Googles to see the result of the game he just played.

The Aces won, one to nothing. Judo got a shutout. Kent fought Mats Zuccarello at the start of the second, and they both went at it, hard and clean.

Hells scored the only goal. It came off Kent’s assist in the last ten seconds of regulation. The article spends a whole paragraph unpicking Kent’s decision to pass to his rookie, giving Hellier a shot on goal from the slot – riskier and through traffic, but deemed selfless as it paid off – instead of taking a much cleaner shot from the point himself.

Kent throws his phone violently at the wall: a kneejerk, rageful spasm. There’s an audible cracking sound as it hits, the screen going dark almost instantly. Kent stares at it, numb and motionless, until the implication of what he’s just done hit him like a truck.

“No,” he croaks, “no, no, _fuck_ –”   

He scrambles over, grabbing the phone from the floor. The screen is marred by a two-pronged crack, and no matter how hard he presses the button, it won’t turn on again.

Kent never memorised Day’s number. He doesn’t know anyone’s number by heart; he’s never needed to. And now he can’t call the person he needs most in the world, or anyone else who could help him.

Sinking to his knees, he starts to shake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: this entire chapter is Kent's PTSD response to meeting his childhood abuser. There's some internalised victim-blaming, some references to specific instances of past abuse, and a moment where he contemplates self-harm. There's going to be comfort coming later in the fic (I promise!) but taken alone, this chapter is very much all hurt, no comfort, so if that's distressing to you, I'd suggest waiting until I've written more to read it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have some Mads POV, because reasons!

Mads doesn’t know what’s going on with Parse, but he knows it’s bad. He’s trying real hard these days not to be an asshole, not to make the locker room a toxic place – Mary taught him that phrase, and it’s stuck in his head – but god, he could fucking _kill_ Swoops when he sees what his “big surprise” is. Christ, it’s not like it’s a fucking secret that Parse had a shitty early life, or that being gay and closeted managed to make it that much shittier after what went down with Zimmerman. What part of all that history makes bringing in some foster lady Parse hasn’t seen in years look like a smart move? Mads knows his own mental limits, okay, he’s never been called bright, and if even _he_ thinks an idea is dumb, then a guy like Swoops has no excuse.

Because, okay: six months ago, Mads thought Parse was an easy guy to read: focussed about hockey, extroverted at parties, and pretty lowkey mellow otherwise. Just happy to do his own thing, or whatever. Turns out, Mads was fucking wrong, and not just about Parse, either. Mary’s doing her best to walk him through the clusterfuck that Danno’s left in his life, but she’s slightly out of her comfort zone in a way that makes Mads her guinea-pig, and they both know it. Not that he’s not still grateful, but. Well. Point being, it turns out Mads is way worse at people than he ever thought he was, so he’s trying to get better at it. Trying to talk less and listen more, especially in the locker room, and maybe it’s just that he paid so much attention to Danno that everyone else sort of faded away, but it hasn’t taken him long to realise just how much basic stuff about his friends he’s never noticed before.

Like, some of the guys with WAGs are happy joining in with dirty chirps when the single bros talk about wheeling, but Javvy never does and pretty much always calls his wife right after. And like, it’s not news that Javvy loves his wife, because Lia is fucking incredible, but Mads didn’t figure before that hearing other guys make ball-and-chain jokes might upset someone who wears his wedding ring on a necklace and kisses it for luck before every game, and that’s… he feels _dumb_ , for missing that. It should be obvious, right? But it wasn’t, because he used to laugh at that sort of shit, too, sometimes because Danno laughed first but also because it was just a joke that everyone made, and he thought that made it okay. But Mads knows, now, that some jokes are like a rock in the mud, and if you lift them up to see what they’re sitting on, all sorts of ugly shit comes crawling out, like the fact that your ex best friend is a fucking monster –

Point is, Mads is _trying_. He’s noticing stuff. And what he’s noticed about Parse is that there’s two main versions of him: Parse-Before-Day, who looked all chill and put-together but was really messed up on the inside, and Parse-After-Day, who has actual feelings where people can see them and is really kind of a dork, but also just, like, so much more visibly happy than Mads ever thought Parse could be. And Nashville, what happened with those jerks in the stands, that was gross and bad and made Mads feel kind of twisted-up sick in a way he _really_ doesn’t like, but Parse was still Parse-After-Day in the locker room, right? Like, he wasn’t _happy_ , but he was still clearly doing all his usual stuff. But ever since Swoops brought that foster-woman and her neighbour into the locker room, Parse has been acting like Parse-Before-Day, all blank and chill and closed off, and what’s starting to drive Mads crazy is the fact that nobody else seems worried by it.

If Racker were here, he reckons, things might be different. Goalies are fucking weird as hell, but it’s their job to notice stuff, and Racker’s had a pretty good line on Parse’s moods since everything went down. But Swoops, like… Mads has always hated Swoops a little, not in a personal way, but because he’s one of those hockey guys who’s never had to deal with hard stuff off the ice and is totally useless at real things because of it, like he’s always had his mom or his coach or whoever to do everything for him and he hasn’t learned how hard a lot of stuff basically is. Like, okay, Mads doesn’t exactly have his shit together in an adult way, but he knows how to cook and clean and do his own laundry if he has to, and he’s letting Mary help him with the other stuff even though it freaks him out a lot, and that’s got to count for something, right? And it’s not, like, Swoops isn’t _Danno_ , he’s not _that_ sort of asshole, and he’s not gone too far the other way and fucked himself up with a drinking problem or whatever like some of Mads’s old AHL buddies; he’s just… he’s _lucky_ , and he’s happy, and that shouldn’t be a bad thing at all, but sometimes it means he doesn’t see how different some other guys have it.

And right now, Parse has a problem. Mads knows that much, but he also knows he fucked up enough with the Danno thing that he can’t just start lecturing his teammates about tact and feelings either, let alone try and ask Parse about it out of nowhere; not if he doesn’t want to make shit worse for everyone. So he thinks about stuff that Mary’s said, and uses what she calls _soft tactics for de-escalation_ , which basically means putting himself between Swoops and Kent without acting like that’s what he’s doing. It’s not until he sits down next to Parse on the bus that he realises Mary’s _soft tactics_ are exactly what girls do in groups to stop guys hitting on their friends, and wow, that’s a whole new thing he’s going to have to talk to her about, because Danno used to bitch about cockblocking duffs a _lot_.

 _Another red flag on the play_ , Mads thinks, and shifts uncomfortably in his seat as Parse-Before-Day stares vacantly out the window.

The Rangers game starts fine; or at least, Mads thinks it does. He sees Swoops try to patch shit up with Parse in the locker room, in that dumb Swoops way where he thinks life is just that simple, but at least it’s something, and Mads is in no position to criticise anyone for trying. Once the puck drops, though, he’s pretty focussed on playing, so it’s not until midway through the first that he realises something is badly wrong with Parse. Or, well: he _thinks_ there’s something wrong, but it’s more an instinct that anything else, or an instinct mixed in with a memory. It’s just, he’s done a lot thinking about all the ways he’s fucked up about no homo stuff as a player, and maybe the worst thing of all was that time in Parse’s rookie year when Mads tried to make a gay joke about Kit, and Parse went all shocky and quiet and blank and cut his own leg with a skate blade. Mads didn’t know how vividly he remembered it all until Parse threw it back in his face, but he does, and he’s thought about it over and over since then.

Which is why he feels in his gut that Parse is profoundly not okay, because he’s just… his eyes are too bright and too blank all at once, the way they were when he cut himself, and he’s still playing beautiful hockey because he’s Kent Fucking Parson, but he’s _jittery_ on the bench, quiet and jittery and unnerving as all get out. So Mads thinks, okay, maybe one of the Rangers said something shitty to him, and he puts himself next to Kent the next time they’re both off-ice together and asks, “You need me to hit someone for you?”

Parse shakes his head without properly turning, eyes tracking the puck on the ice. It’s fucking creepy, and okay, sure, Mads can see how it’s not all that different to Parse just being deep in his hockey-star headspace, and maybe he’s just projecting because of guilt and the other thing, but something _feels_ wrong, and he’s trying to be good with feelings.  

And then, in the second period, Parse somehow ends up dropping his gloves with _Mats Zuccarello_ , a guy who’s twenty pounds of fight in a five-pound bag. Parse might have three inches on him, but Zucc is built like a concrete block and crazy enough to try and board Chara that one time, whereas Parse never actually fights and uses speed over checking. Mads is already moving as the play is whistled dead, flying back up ice to save his captain from certain death at the hands of a mad Norwegian wrecking ball, except that Parse, astonishingly, is giving as good as he gets. Both their helmets are off, fists flying as they grapple across the ice, and it’s only when the refs finally call a halt to it that Mads realises he doesn’t know why they were fighting in the first place. Not that that stops either team from banging their sticks in appreciation – they’re past the halfway mark with no score, which makes it a good time to try and shift the momentum with violence – but as Parse and Zucc head to their boxes with matching penalties, Mads is worried.

“Who started it?” he asks Katzy, when they’re next on the bench together.     

“Must’ve been Zucc,” says Katzy.  “Parse never fights.” He hesitates, then adds, “I’d be worried, but it all looked clean, and nobody’s getting in anyone’s grill over there.” He tips his stick towards the boxes, where Parse can be seen sitting silently while Zucc, on the other side of the barrier, finger-combs his flow.

“Right,” says Mads, trying to sound convinced, and then gets his head back in the game.

Parse is quiet at second intermission. He gets his hands looked over, grins whenever the boys congratulate him on the fight, but he’s, like… Mads doesn’t know if there’s a word for it, but if it’s possible to be closed off and manic at the same time, then that’s what Parse is being, and it raises the hairs on his neck. He keeps looking around at everyone, waiting for someone who knows Parse better to realise that something is super messed up so that he doesn’t have to feel responsible for it anymore, but nobody does, and it’s just… it doesn’t make any sense. Maybe he’s overthinking everything, seeing shit that’s not there for some stupid reason. That’s more likely than Mads being the only guy on the team to see that the captain’s all fucked up, isn’t it?

It takes an unexpected amount of courage, but as they get ready to head back down the tunnel, Mads makes himself pull Javvy aside, because Javvy is the next most sensible dude on the team after Racker, and asks quietly, “Is Parser all right, do you think?”

Javvy blinks at him, slow and oddly considering. “No,” he says at last. “No, I don’t think he is.”

“Me neither,” he says, weirdly relieved, because this is the part where he gets to hand the problem along to a proper adult. “So, like. Shouldn’t someone do something? Help him?”

“I don’t know,” Javvy says, which – what?

“What?” says Mads, stupidly.

“I don’t know,” Javvy says again. “The way Parse is, us trying to make him talk might make it worse. Swoops thought the foster mom thing would be okay, but it clearly wasn’t, and if Kent doesn’t want to tell us why, then I don’t want to press him.”

They’re starting to file down the tunnel now, so it’s not like they have unlimited conversation time, but Mads doesn’t know what to do in this situation. “But leaving him alone could be bad, too.”

Javvy looks pained, flashing Mads a half-shrug, half-glance that clearly says, _I agree with you, but I don’t know where to go from here, either._     

 _Well, fuck,_ says Mads’s answering look, and then the window for actual talking vanishes.

The third is hard and fast, which helps distract Mads from his problem. Even so, there’s a moment where he ends up on the ice beside Zucc when a play is blown dead, and as nobody on the Aces seems to know what the fight was all about, he takes a chance and asks for his version.

“Don’t know,” says Zuccarello, in that cheerful, not-quite-Kermit-the-Frog Norwegian accent of his. “He asked if I wanted to go, so we did.”

 _Huh,_ thinks Mads, and wishes he knew if that was a good thing or not.

They win by the skin of their teeth and the grace of Judo’s reflexs, the whole team piling in on Hells and Parse in the final celly. Mads is so buoyed up by the win, it’s not until he’s dressing post-shower and people are talking about celebrating, given that they’ve got a free day tomorrow, that he thinks to check in on Parse again. He got the apple on Hells’s goal, so he ought to be in on any plans, but when Javvy asks him to come out, he shakes his head and smiles in a way that’s almost convincing and says, “I want to stay in tonight. You guys have fun, though.”

And that’s… that’s not so bad, really. Swoops is over in the corner looking less like a kicked puppy than he did before the game, which is whatever, but even though Javvy shoots Mads a look as if to say, _See? He just needs some time_ , Mads still feels weird about the whole thing. Like, he absolutely wants to go out with Hells and the others and unwind with a few drinks, even if it does mean putting up with Swoops in an off-ice capacity, but he has this nagging sense that he shouldn’t, so he doesn’t. Instead, he gives Hells a noogie for the goal, tells Judo good job, and grabs a ride back to the hotel (in a cab, not an Uber; his mother is union through and through).

He hesitates in the lobby. He’s pretty sure Parse beat him back from the Garden and he still doesn’t know if talking to him is the right idea, but he feels like he needs the option, just in case. Fuck, maybe fighting Zucc was Parse’s way of blowing off whatever steam he’d built up from earlier and now he just needs to chill out – what the hell does Mads know? But Mads is trying to be better, and part of that means he’s going to screw it up sometimes no matter what, and right now, he thinks he’d rather screw up by trying to do something instead of failing to do anything. With that decided, he goes to the front desk and gets a copy of the keycard to Parse’s room, which ought to be hard, but hockey players are in and out of each other’s spaces all the time and the clerk clearly knows it, judging by the conspiratorial wink she shoots him. Probably, she thinks he’s going to set up a prank or something.

Mads puts the card in a different part of his wallet to the space he keeps aside for his own, feeling kind of sick and kind of stupid all at once. Parse is on the same floor as him, but a few doors down, so it’s not like Mads will have to take a special, conspicuous trip in the lift just to see him. _If_ he sees him. He still doesn’t know if he should or not; Javvy said no, and he’d ordinarily go with that, but Mads can’t stop thinking about the fact that Parse once pushed a skate blade into his thigh because he was backed into a corner, and maybe Javvy doesn’t remember that happening, just like Mads didn’t always remember, but he sure as hell does now.

So he goes to his room and thinks about it, changing out of his gameday suit into sweats and a comfy t-shirt. That done, he pulls out his phone and dicks around on Facebook a bit, which is when he realises the obvious: _I need a second opinion_. Which, okay, that’s a starting point, but his options are pretty limited, here: he has Mary’s number, but it feels uncool to snitch on Parse to the team therapist when he doesn’t really know that there’s a problem in the first place, and anyway, she’s probably putting her kids to bed right about now. Racker would be his best bet, but healing up from a concussion means staying away from phones and laptops and basically anything with a screen, and Mads doesn’t want to mess with that, either. Swoops and Javvy are out for obvious reasons, but after that, he’s not really sure who else to ask for advice. Hells and Parse are close, but Hells is still a rookie, and anyway, he’s out celebrating his game-winning goal.

Katzy… Mads gives serious thought to Katzy, given that he’s old enough to be headed back early and looked out for Parse in his rookie year, but then, Katzy didn’t seem to think there was anything weird about Kent’s fight, so. Most likely a dead end, there.  

Almost, he’s ready to give it up as a bad idea and head out after all. But then, as he clicks _like_ on a video Lia shared, he realises the most obvious person to ask about Parse is Day. Or, well: obvious in the sense that Parse’s boyfriend has a vested interest in him being okay and is probably a better judge of what that looks like that anyone else, even if he wasn’t there to see what happened, but it’s not like Mads has ever really spoken to him beyond some small talk at family skate and maybe a couple of post-game trips to the bar. Mads feels shy about judging Day, like even having an opinion on the guy is somehow not his business, but he figures he’s got to be special to have done so much good for Parse. Mads chews on that thought for a moment, discomforted by a bunch of personal shit he’ll have to make time for later, and then checks his contacts list. He doesn’t have Day’s number, but he does have his email – Day had asked politely if he’d be willing to give a quote about Danno for the piece he did on Parse and Zimmerman, and Mads had said no, and that was that – and once he looks it up in his inbox, sure enough, his mobile is listed there in his signature.

Mads stares at his phone for a long, hard moment. What if he’s crossing a major line and somehow makes things worse? Probably Parse has already talked to his boyfriend about whatever’s bugging him, and Day will tell Parse that Mads called him, and Mads will end up even more of a black sheep than he already is. He doesn’t want that, obviously, but he doesn’t know what else to do, and now that he’s come this far, he doesn’t think he’ll be able to sleep if he doesn’t at least do _something_.

So he dials the number, elbows braced on his knees. The phone rings for a long time without going to voicemail; so long that he’s about to hang up when, finally, Day answers.

“This is Damian Navarro.”

Mads gets momentarily tongue-tied, realising too late that he hasn’t actually worked out what to say to not sound like a weirdo. “Uh, hi. This is, uh. Mads? I mean, uh, Liam Maddry, from the Aces? I play with Pa- Kent?”

“Oh!” says Day. “Hi, Mads. What can I do for you?”

“It’s not for me,” Mads says, “just – shit, this is going to sound really stupid, but I’m just, like. I’m worried about Kent? I mean, you probably already talked to him about it or whatever, but he’s been acting really weird ever since, and I just –”

“Ever since what?” Day says, startled. “I haven’t heard from him since last night. What’s happened?”

“He’s not hurt,” Mads says quickly, thinking about the skate Kent took to the throat. “But, uh. So, I guess Kent’s old foster mom, the one he had before the Q, contacted Swoops – uh, Jeff – somehow, and they organised for her and this other guy to come visit Kent at warmups today, and it was, like, Swoops meant it as a surprise? Like, obviously some people knew it was happening, and there were cameras there for, like, Aces TV or whatever, but none of the rest of us knew any details, and anyway –” he takes a breath, aware that he’s rambling, “– just, Kent’s been really, uh, really… quiet, ever since? I mean. Just. Like, bad quiet. Like how he was before he met you. And he fought Mats Zuccarello during the game, which was kind of weird, but I’m not sure –”

“Who was the guy who visited?” Day’s interruption shuts him up cold; there’s real fear in his voice, harried and urgent. “Do you know his name?”

“Uh,” says Mads, racking his brain. “G-something, I think? Greg? No, Gary, that was it, I think he was Kent’s old neighbour –”

“Oh fuck,” Day whispers, “Oh fucking Christ _fuck_ –” and then a string of angry, terrified Spanish that Mads doesn’t understand. His stomach’s starting to churn when Day abruptly switches back to English: “Tell me what happened. _Exactly_ what happened.”

“There’s not much to tell,” says Mads, knowing full well there must be; it’s just that he doesn’t have the full picture. “The foster lady, Andrea, she came in, and Kent looked kind of freaked, but they hugged, and then Gary came in, and they hugged, too –”

“Merciful _fucking_ Christ!” Day snarls, so vehement that Mads jerks the phone away from his ear. He can hear Day’s breathing, ragged and enraged. “What else?”

“Uh. They took some photos together, and I think they said they were going to be at the game, and then they left. Andrea and Gary did, I mean, it was only a quick visit, but then Kent said he needed space or whatever and he went off on his own for, like, a good fifteen minutes or something – we were all on the ice already by the time he came back – and just, he’s clearly pissed at Swoops, but in this way where he’s gone all quiet about it, and I know I don’t know him as well as I always thought I did, but, uh, ever since, you know – ” he gulps, abruptly nervous, “– ever since then, he’s been different. Happier. More, like, open. But today, it was like he was old Parse again, Parse before he had you, and Javvy said he just needed time, and I would’ve asked Racker but he’s not here, and I just… it felt _wrong_ , not doing anything, and I didn’t know who else to call.”

There’s a moment of terrible silence, punctuated by harsh breathing. Then, in a flat and frightening voice, Day says, “Mads. Liam. I need to ask you to do some things for me, and I can’t fully explain why it’s important, but I need you to believe me that it is, okay?”

“Okay,” says Mads, heart beating fast. “What is it?”

“First, I need you to go find Kent. Wherever he is, whatever he’s doing: I need you to find him, and I need you to keep him safe for me. I… I tried to call him a minute or so before you rang me, and his phone is off, but once you find him, I need you to call me and tell me you have him, all right? I need to know he’s okay. And – but if he’s not,” says Day, voice choking awfully, “if he’s hurt or, or there’s something – if he’s not, if you’re not sure – then you call me first, okay? And you tell him, you tell him I’ll speak to him no matter what, if he tries to tell you he can’t or I won’t, you put the phone to his head and you make him hear me, okay?”

“Jesus,” Mads says faintly. “Fuck, okay. I promise. I’ll find him, I’ll do all that stuff you said, just… can you tell me what’s going on?”

“I shouldn’t,” Day says, raggedly. “He doesn’t want anyone to know, he’s never wanted anyone to know, and I’m going to book a flight out there as soon as I can, but I’m on the other side of the country right now, and this... Jesus, this is like a nightmare, like his literal worst nightmare, and he’s dealing with it alone.”

Mads shuts his eyes. “I get it,” he says, knowing he’s only in the ballpark of getting it, probably – his issues aren’t Kent’s issues – but the ballpark is bad enough. “Some people just fuck you up.”

“You could say that,” says Day. “Jesus, I’m… please, call me when you find him, but just… you have no idea, you have _no idea_ how right you were to call me, and I’m – I’m so grateful, I’m –”

“It’s okay,” says Mads, who knows it isn’t but doesn’t know how to handle the way Day sounds like he’s going to cry. “He’s, I mean. I’d rather have been wrong, you know? But he’s my captain. And I… I owed him not to fuck it up for once.”

“He’s lucky to have you as a teammate,” Day says – and then, mercifully, because Mads has no idea how the fuck to respond to that, either, “I’ve got to go, I need to book a flight. Just – call me back, okay? Please?”

“I promise,” says Mads, and ends the call.

“Shit,” he says to himself. He puts his phone in his pocket, running his hands through his still-damp hair. “Shit, shit, _shit_.” He thinks, _I’m not equipped to deal with this._ He thinks, _I need a real adult._

But there is no one else, and he promised Day.

So Mads gets up, and takes a breath, and goes to find his captain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mats Zuccarello is a real player. He's 5'7, which means he's fucking *tiny* for a hockey bro, and yes, he has indeed attempted to board Zdeno Chara, a man who is 6'9 and built like an ent. Please enjoy the photographic proof of this wonderful moment: https://78.media.tumblr.com/34d88793de7b57e8144fb46b916a5143/tumblr_inline_p5nncda3uC1uzmo69_500.png


	4. Chapter 4

After all Day’s fears for Kent’s wellbeing, Mads honestly isn’t expecting to find him in his room. He’s thinking he’ll poke his head in and the place will be trashed, or maybe just empty, and then he’ll have to lowkey ask the desk clerk if she saw Kent go past or, like, try some actual sleuthing. It’s therefore a genuine shock when he taps lightly on Kent’s door, swipes his card on the reader and steps in to find him right there, sitting on the floor with his knees drawn up like a little kid, and for maybe two seconds, he thinks it’s all okay. But then he realises Kent’s crying silently, a thin trickle of what looks like blood half-drying on the side of his neck, and his stomach churns all over again.

“Hey, Parse,” he says, taking care to move slowly, talk quietly, as the door clicks shut behind him. _God, I’m not fucking equipped for this._ “Hey, Parse, it’s Mads. I’m just, uh. I’m just gonna sit here with you, okay?”

It takes an alarmingly long time for Kent to register Mads’s presence: long enough that, by the time he finally looks up, Mads has gotten awkwardly down on his knees on the carpet, not too close but not too distant, either.

“I don’t know how I got back here,” Kent says. His voice is scratchy from crying, thin and strange in a way Mads hardly recognises. “From the game. I don’t remember playing, either. I had to Google the score.”

And that’s – Jesus, that’s actually terrifying, not only as a thing to have happen to you, but how easily Kent admits it, like he’s so far beyond caring that he’s got no filter anymore. Mads forces himself to do this one thing at a time, analysing the situation like he’s breaking down a set play. So, okay: up close, he can see that there is indeed blood on Kent’s neck, which is contextually disturbing, but there’s no, like, knives or broken glass or anything like a weapon nearby, no sign that he’s hit his head on something. Really, it just looks like he’s scratched himself a bit too hard, so unless he starts trying to make it worse, it shouldn’t be a problem. With that established, he pulls out his phone and says, very carefully, “I spoke to Day. He wants you to call him back.”

Kent jerks upright at his boyfriend’s name. His eyes go wide, a look on his face like he doesn’t know what’s happening, and when Mads unlocks his phone and holds it out, the screen already showing Day’s number, Kent takes it from him as reverently as if it’s a signed Gretzky puck.

“Thank you,” he says, hoarsely. “Oh god. Oh god.”

Mads hesitates. Day told him not to leave Kent alone, but if Kent asks for privacy while making the call, he’s not quite sure what he’ll do. But Kent says nothing; just dials and clutches the phone like a lifeline, which it kind of is, eyes closed as his tears dry up.

This time, Day answers much faster than he did before. He must think it’s Mads calling, though, because it’s a couple of seconds before Kent croaks out, “It’s me.”

Mads ought to look away, give the guy some space, but Kent’s eyes are still closed and he’s weirdly transfixed by the look on his face, this torturous mix of relief and agony as he listens to whatever Day’s saying.

“No,” says Kent, in response to some question. “No, I broke it. I just… I had a moment. I panicked.”

More silence from Kent, though he shudders and ducks his head as he listens. Then:

“I know. I know. Just… remind me I said okay, will you? If I get mad later?” And then, to Mads’s astonishment, Kent opens his eyes and says to him, very softly, “I’m going to put this on speaker, if that’s… if you think you can deal with this. With me. And I’ll understand if you can’t. But I’m, I need someone here to know what’s going on right now, and you’re… I can trust you with this, I think. I hope.” He gives a tiny, awful laugh. “Can I?”

“Yeah,” says Mads, a little choked up to realise it’s true. “You can trust me.”

“Okay,” says Kent. “Okay.” And he puts the phone on speaker, setting it down on the mattress.

“Mads?” Day asks, his voice tinny but audible. “Can you hear me now?”

“Yeah, I can.”

“Good. Oh, god.” He gives a shaky laugh. “I’ve got a cab coming in fifteen minutes to take me to the airport and my phone is running out of charge, so if I suddenly drop out, that’s why. I’ll forward you both my flight details once I’ve checked in, though, okay? I’d have done it already, but I’m on standby for a cancellation, so.”

“You shouldn’t have to come,” says Kent. He curls in on himself, shaking a little as he leans against the end of the bed. “I hate that I’m so fucked up all the time, you can’t even have one week away without me having a fucking crisis –”

“Don’t,” Day shoots back. “Don’t you dare. Please, _cariño_ , this is _not your fault_. I’m going to _kill_ Swoops for putting you through this –”

“He didn’t know,” Kent says, weakly.

“– which is why he should have _asked_.”   

Kent shudders. “I know. I fucking know, I’m so… Jesus, Day, I wanted to choke him out in the fucking locker room, I was so goddamn _angry_ , but I couldn’t – I couldn’t _say_ anything, I didn’t want any of them to _know_ , and I had to stand there, I had to stand there and let him _touch_ me and I keep, I keep feeling it happen all over and over again, I keep scratching my neck where he put his hand, I want –” his body shakes violently, spasming as he hugs himself, “– I want to cut it out of me, I want to cut _him_ out of me, I want to cut out every part he ever touched but I can’t do that, there’d be nothing left, and I hate – I _hate_ it – I – ”

Kent’s speech dissolves awfully, choking into sobs as Day calls him _cariño_ and tells him to breathe, _it’s not your fault, it’s not, you’ve done nothing wrong, I’m here, I’m here_.

Mads feels the pieces click into place with hideous clarity. He thought he knew what ballpark this was, but he got it wrong, this is so much worse, and Day isn’t going to get a chance to murder Swoops, because Mads is going to beat him to it. He doesn’t mean to say this last part out loud, but the sudden, startled silence from Day and Kent says he did anyway – and then, like a miracle, Kent manages a single, hiccupping laugh.

“I’ll hold him down, you punch?” he offers, with a watery smile.

“Hell,” says Mads, “you held your own against Zucc pretty well; I’m thinking that you punch, too.”

“I may hold you to that,” says Kent. He takes a shuddering breath and calms a little, looking at Mads with tense resignation. “So. Now you know. My last big secret.”

Mads bites his lip, hands shoved in his lap to keep from fidgeting. He doesn’t know what sort of thing he’s meant to say back, if he’s meant to offer sympathy or anger or commiseration or just, like, acknowledge the moment or whatever; his thoughts and feelings are all jumbled up, which is perhaps why he ends up blurting out, “Mary says that when bad stuff happens to kids, it’s nobody’s fault but whoever hurt them. And family, or fostering, whatever… that shit’s always complicated. Swoops shouldn’t have sprung this on you, because it’s a dumb thing to spring on anyone.”

Kent sits up a little straighter, giving Mads a strange look. He doesn’t know why until he mentally replays what he just said and winces, ducking his head to try and avoid Kent’s scrutiny.

“You don’t have to answer this,” Kent says, carefully, “but does that mean you’ve talked to Mary about… kid stuff?”

It’s clearly a euphemism; Mads shakes his head violently, staring at the carpet. “Not like yours,” he says quickly, and then, “Fuck. _Fuck_ , I didn’t – that’s not what – I just –”

“It’s all right,” says Day, voice gentle and distant. “You don’t have to –”

“ _No_ ,” says Mads, scrunching a hand through his hair. He feels hot all over, weird and embarrassed and stupid about it, but nobody’s laughing and Kent is suddenly the most present he’s been all day, like… like maybe it’s the same way for him that it is for Mads, where doing stuff for someone else helps him deal with his own crap, and it’s not like Mads meant to bring it up, but. Well. He did, and he guesses they want to hear it now, so he sort of gulps and says, awkwardly, “I wasn’t, uh. Molested, or whatever. Nothing like that. But my, uh. My dad was, like. He hit us, and stuff. Me and my brothers. Like, really hit. And he always said it was meant to toughen us up, like for hockey, but he’d hit our mom sometimes, too, but he said that was different, and I guess, uh. Like, it wasn’t good, obviously, but I made it to the show, so I figured he’d been right about it working for me, but. I never really, like, dealt with it? But Mary’s been, uh. Helping me with it, and with, like, other stuff. So.” He laughs shakily. “Guess we’ve all got secret shit, is what I mean. And it sucks.”

He’s looking anywhere but at Kent, uncomfortably aware that he’s not good at any of this, when Kent says, softly, “Hey. Mads.” So Mads looks up, and Kent has this, this _look_ on his face, that’s sort of like his captain expression but also more private than that, as he says, “It sucks you had to grow up like that. And I’m… I’m really proud of you, for getting help about it.”

Mads shrugs, uncomfortable with the praise. “I’ve fucked up a lot, I know that. With, uh. With Danno especially. Just. I don’t wanna be that guy again, you know?”

“I get it,” Kent says. “Believe me. I was… back before he joined the Falcs, I said some really vicious shit to Jack, like just… I was hurting so much, and it’s not his fault he didn’t know that, but I wanted him to feel it, just once, and I nearly lost him forever because of what I did. But Day helped me patch things up with him –”

“Sweetheart,” Day says, fondly. “You did all the hard work yourselves. I only made one phone call.”

“Well, it mattered,” Kent shoots back, with a flash of his usual stubbornness. “ _This_ is only one phone call, too, and it matters. You always do.”

There’s a moment of silence as they all absorb this. “Oh, _cariño_ ,” Day says, and there’s so much love in the word Mads feels his stomach twist. “You’re right. That’s fair.” And then, more tenderly still, “You matter, too.”

“I know.” Kent looks like he wants to cry, but he’s laughing, too. “I can’t believe I know that, but I do. I never did, before. And I’m sorry this happened at all, but I won’t be sorry to see you. I never am.” He leans his arm on the bed and his head on his arm, hair flopped over his forehead as the tension melts out of his body. He looks like he’s posing for some suit catalogue, and Mads doesn’t know what to do with his tongue, suddenly, if he should talk or not talk: it feels too big in his mouth.

“You’re using my card to pay for the flight, right?” Kent asks, suddenly.

Day hesitates. “I wasn’t sure –”

“Use it,” Kent says. “And upgrade to first class, too, if they’ll let you. Hell, there’s probably more free seats in first anyway.”

“Okay,” says Day. “I will. That’s a good idea.” And then, in a different tone of voice, “Are you still there, Liam?”

“Yeah,” says Mads, feeling weirdly guilty about it. “I can go, though, if you want –”

“Don’t go,” says Day. “I just wanted to make sure you could hear me. I don’t have much longer, I think; my battery is in the red, and I still need to make another call if I’m going to make a seat change. Please. Just… keep Kent safe for me, will you?”

Absurdly, Mads flushes at the request. He is, to be honest, a little bit spellbound by Day, who’s come into Kent’s life like some sort of magic prince to make everything better, and whose voice is just, like… warm, somehow. Soothing. One phone call to him, and Kent isn’t shaking or crying anymore, even though Mads knows he likely won’t stay this calm, either, once Day’s voice is gone; at which point, it’ll be Mads’s job to try and make Kent okay. And the thing is, it’s not like he’s tried to avoid hanging out with Kent and Day together, the few times they’ve all been in the one place; it’s just that he didn’t think it was a good idea after Danno, only now he’s just sat in on a conversation that was way more intimate than a lot of the sex he’s ever had, and fuck, that’s not – that isn’t the leap he meant to make, but that twisting feeling is still in his stomach, a skip in his pulse like they’re one goal down at the end of the third, that now or never feeling he gets on the ice, and –

“I will,” he whispers. “Fuck, I’m so… I wish I had what you guys do. I wish –”

 _I wish Danno could’ve been that for me, instead of what he was._   

And there it is: the other thing, still stuck on his tongue like a burr in a sock. Mads swallows that sharp and poisoned truth, the one that only Mary knows, and says instead, softly, “– I wish I knew how to want that. Or be that, like you guys are. For a, a partner, or something. With a girl, maybe. Or. _Or_.”

He can’t say it. He can’t just fucking _say_ it, not even to Kent and Day, but somehow Kent knows anyway, and Mads knows that he knows, because Kent’s eyes widen and Mads’s cheeks burn and then suddenly, Kent is up on his knees and pulling Mads into a hug whose strength is utterly out of proportion to his body, and yet gentle, so gentle.  

“ _Mads_ ,” Kent chokes out, leaning back to look him in the eye. “You – really?”

“Yeah,” says Mads, and when the fuck did his throat get so goddamn tight? “I guess? I… yeah. Like, girls, too, but. Yeah. I just. I never knew what it was, before. I didn’t let myself know it was anything.” And then, half-pleading, “Please don’t tell anyone. Not yet.”

“We won’t,” says Kent, voice trembling. “We promise.”

“We’ve got your back,” says Day, and Mads believes them, he truly does, and Kent leans up to hug him again, more fiercely than before. Mads buries his face in Kent’s shoulder and shakes with something that’s almost laughter; and somehow, despite the day’s many evils, the world doesn’t end for any of them.

It just gets a little bit bigger.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELCOME TO FEELSTOWN, POPULATION: ME


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning in end notes.

Day stays on the line for another half-minute before he hangs up to call the airport, apologising all the while for not having kept his phone charged. Mads looks away as he and Kent farewell each other, both their voices trembling, and when Day finally hangs up, the sudden silence lands like a detonation.

Casting around Kent’s room in search of conversational inspiration, Mads frowns when he realises that, though the bed still has its undersheet, the blankets and pillows are missing. There’s not many places to hide them in even a big hotel room; it’s a weird thing to get stuck on, maybe, but he can’t see them anywhere, and now that he’s noticed he can’t _un_ -notice.

He feels like that about a lot of things, lately.

Gesturing awkwardly to the stripped bed, he says, “So, uh. Do we need to complain to housekeeping, or did somebody prank you?”

Kent winces a little, hunching in again. “Neither,” he says, and Mads feels like an idiot. “The stuff’s in the bathtub.”

Mads blinks. “Huh?”

“In the bathtub,” Kent says again. He picks at a loose strand of carpet, carefully not looking up. “Before the game, I couldn’t… it was hard to sleep, out here. So I slept in the bathtub. It’s not a big deal,” he adds, in this false-calm voice that Mads now knows means it is, in fact, a _gigantic_ deal.

Almost, Mads asks him why, but stops with his lips half-parted when he remembers being seven years old and hiding in the cabinet under the bathroom sink so his dad, who was drunk, couldn’t find him and hit him. He shudders at the memory, hating how it makes him feel, but he gets it, he thinks. It’s been a long time since Mads felt truly afraid of another person hurting him: he got his growth spurt early, grew up big and strong and learned how to use his fists off the ice as well as on it, and it’s not like he’s not still scared of some things, but an angry man isn’t one of them. But Kent… Kent’s little, for a hockey player – not _super_ little, like Zucc or DeBrincat, but little enough. And the kind of hurt he got as a kid… Christ, Mads doesn’t even know how you’d ever stop being scared of something like that, when it still happens to adults.

He makes himself look at Kent, whose gaze is still fixed determinedly on the carpet, and swallows around all the things he doesn’t understand.

“You’re a good captain,” Mads says instead. “Just. You always know what to say to people, how to say it. I’m not real good at this stuff. But, like. If sleeping in the bath made you feel better, then I’m not gonna judge you.” And then, because he can’t quite help himself, “Weren’t you uncomfortable, though?”

Kent lets out a short, strangled laugh. “Very,” he says, and when he looks up at Mads, he’s almost smiling. “The tub’s too short, even for me. I was all cramped up.”

“I slept in a bath once, after a big night out. I had my head and my back on the bottom and my legs hanging over the edge, and then I woke up and vomited right in the plughole.”

Kent snorts, and Mads feels absurdly proud of himself, which is not an emotion he’s ever felt before while telling that story.

Silence falls again, more peaceably than before. Kent shifts a little, running a hand through his hair.

“So, uh. You, obviously, you don’t have to talk about it with me if you don’t want to, but… have you ever, like, done anything? With a guy? Not that I’m asking for deets if you have or saying you can’t be into dudes if you haven’t,” Kent adds in a rush, at Mads’s startled inhale. “Just, like. It kind of sounds like you haven’t, and it’s not… if it’s something you’re going to, uh, go for in the future, there’s stuff you should know that you maybe don’t, like how to be safe, where to go, whatever. Or, um. If you wanted to, uh. Meet someone? I’m guessing Day would be happy to set you up, or point you in the right direction at least. If you wanted.”

Mads digests this offer, momentarily stunned. Admitting the whole liking-guys secret to Mary is one thing; discussing practicalities with Kent, a gay dude, is another. But right now, of the two of them, Mads clearly has the easier personal shit to deal with, and as weird as he feels about actually having this sort of conversation, he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t curious. Like, Google totally exists, sure, but it took teenage Mads more than one embarrassing hookup before Amie stuck around long enough to explain that porn sex and real sex are different things, and here’s what not to do next time. And anyway, he’s always learned better from talking and watching than reading. So.

“Uh,” he says, ducking his head and taking a deep breath. “Like. I’m still, uh, working up to, you know. Actually doing stuff. So maybe in the future? But, um. Safety… you mean, like, using condoms?”

“Well, yeah,” says Kent, slowly. “And, you know, how to do prep and which lube to buy, too, though everyone has their own preferences if they’re into that type of sex. But I more meant, like. How to be safe in bars, how to spot creeps, that sort of thing.”

Mads frowns. “I mean. I’m a pretty big dude, Parser. If some douche wants to hit me for, like, being into guys, I can take care of myself.”

Kent winces. “Not what I meant.”

“Then what?”

“Fuck.” Kent runs a hand down his face. “Jesus, you – okay. Um. You, you’re definitely a big, strong guy, I’m not trying to say that you’re not, uh, capable of defending yourself, but it’s not, like… you’re not the only big, strong guy in the world who’s also into guys, right? And it’s not, it doesn’t even have to be about physical strength if you’re drunk enough or off your guard, but even if it is, it’s not that sort of fight, Mads, and just getting into a bad situation can fuck you up in ways you don’t expect, even if you don’t end up really hurt.”

It’s such a mindfuck on the way Mads has always viewed picking up, it takes him what he’ll later think of as an embarrassingly long time to get it, even with Kent sitting there, looking right at him. He thinks again about girls in bars, puck bunnies making sure their friends know who they’re leaving with, guarding each other’s drinks, texting as soon as the sex is done to say that they’re okay. He thinks about that one time Danno had been about to take a girl to his hotel room until her friends intervened and pulled her off him; Mads hadn’t really thought she was all that drunk, but when Danno, fuming, finally opted to leave the club, they saw her throwing up outside, one girlfriend holding her long hair back as another called a cab. Danno’s mood had changed instantly, laughing it off as a bullet dodged, but unlike Mads-then, Mads-now wonders what Danno would’ve done if the girl had been sick at the hotel with him: if he would’ve been angry at her, or thrown her out, or treated her like she was still good to go once she’d cleaned herself up. It’s a vile thought, twisting through every part of him, but as dumb and uncritical as Mads-then was, not even he could imagine Danno holding a strange drunk girl’s hair while she vomited and calling her a cab.

 _You know how shitty Danno was to girls sometimes,_ Mads thinks at himself. _So even if he was into dudes, too, what makes you think he’d treat them any better? Being attracted to someone doesn’t stop straight guys from being shitty, and being a professional athlete or a famous actress or whatever doesn’t stop straight women from getting hurt by awful men. So I guess… I guess that’s the same for queer dudes, too. Even big ones, like me._

“Oh,” he says out loud. He feels his whole face change as he finally gets it. “ _Oh_.”    

“Yeah,” says Kent, a little sadly. “Sorry. Believe me, I’m not trying to scare you or anything, but it’s like, I don’t know… like learning to keep your head up when you’re playing the puck. Ideally, you don’t get boarded by some asshole who can see your numbers or taken out by a guy who leaves his feet to land a dirty hit, but you’d be pretty fucking pissed if you somehow got to the NHL without knowing that shit ever happens and then having it happen to you.”

“Yeah, no, I get it,” Mads says, shuddering only a little. “Or, well. I think I kind of do? Like, I absolutely believe you, but I don’t know enough to imagine how it could happen to me, because my whole –” he waves a hand, struggling for words, “– my whole _thing_ is fighting. But then, I’ve never had some dude try to take me on when I was too wasted to even stand up, or roofie me or whatever, so.”

At the word _roofie_ , Kent freezes.

“Salt,” he whispers. “If you ever – if you ever taste salt or bitterness in a drink that shouldn’t taste like that, then you get out. You put it down and you _get out_ , okay?”    

Mads feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. “I will, Parser,” he says. “I promise.”

“I’m sorry.” Kent draws up into himself, cheek pressed against his knees. His voice is thin and rough, and Mads is appalled to see that he’s shaking again. “I’m sorry, fuck. I should’ve… it’s a trigger, for me. Roofies, I mean. They’re. It’s one of the things _he_ did, that _he_ made me think… he knew I was gay before anyone else, so he taught me young. He said it was _teaching_. Said what he did was _normal_ but it _wasn’t_ , and I didn’t – I didn’t _know_ , then, but I was – I was so fucking _stupid_ , I couldn’t –”

“You weren’t stupid,” Mads says desperately, hating Gary and Swoops and his own fucking helplessness all over again. He reaches out, puts a hand on Kent’s shoulder and squeezes gently, hoping to hell it’s the right decision. Kent shudders under the touch and then pitches forwards, an awful noise in his throat. Mads reacts instinctively, shifting to pull Kent into – well, not his _lap_ , because that would be weird, but sort of between his legs in a body-hug, so that Kent is curled up in a sideways kneel with his face mashed to Mads’s shoulder. Mads squirms again, bracing his back against the edge of the mattress, and tries not to overthink what he’s doing with his hands: one moving between Kent’s shoulders, patting him the way he’d pat a drunk buddy hunched over a toilet bowl, and the other snugged around his waist to keep him upright, or at least sort of fixed in place. He can feel Kent trembling, breathing hard and ragged into the fabric of his shirt, and it’s only once he’s certain that Kent isn’t going to start talking or struggling that he lets himself process what he’d actually _said_.

 _Fuck_ , Mads thinks, swallowing hard as he stares at the top of Kent’s head. _Jesus, no wonder he wanted to make sure I knew to be careful._ And it’s not like he _wants_ to keep thinking about Danno, but all this old stuff keeps getting stirred up now that he’s got new ways of seeing it, like that filthy joke Danno loved telling about the home-schooled girl who didn’t know anything about sex or hockey, where the guy ends up fucking her and there’s a bunch of puns about sticks and boxes and scoring, because she ends up thinking him having sex with her is just him teaching her hockey. Which, even Mads-then knew it wasn’t actually _funny_ , even if it always got a laugh the way Danno told it; but then, he realises now, the puns weren’t ever the point. Danno and the other guys were laughing at the idea of a girl who knew so little about sex that you could train her into thinking anything was normal, and that’s... fuck, that’s _way_ too fucking close to what Kent’s neighbour did to him, which is skeevy and awful and criminal –

And exactly the risk Mads was running, if he’d let some random dude be the one to teach him about gay sex.

And now he’s thinking about shit he hasn’t touched in _years_ ; how the first two girls he slept with before Amie hadn’t acted surprised when he pulled their hair or slapped their asses, even though they didn’t moan over it like women on the internet did, and what the fuck happens to _straight_ girls who learn how they’re meant to be treated from porn? Jesus, Mads remembers feeling _relieved_ when Amie told him he didn’t need to say shit like “Yeah, take it,” just because porn actors did, despite the awful shame of needing to be told at all; how good it had been that first time with Maddison afterwards, when he told her to show him what she liked and she _did_ , and it was _amazing_ – but what the fuck good does it do to those girls before Amie, who for all he knows are still walking around thinking, _Liam Maddry is a gross, inconsiderate lay who thinks women are pornstars?_

Which is nauseating on one level, and also the best possible outcome on another, because the alternative is two now-grown women who still expect adult men to treat them in bed the way Mads did when he was sixteen and didn’t know any better, and how the fuck, how the _fuck_ has it taken him _this goddamn long_ to realise how shitty things are for so many people? Why does it take something as awful as his captain being forced to deal with his childhood abuser for Mads to pull his head out of his ass and realise that feeling safe because you know how to punch people only makes sense if you never knew there was anything other than punching to be scared of in the first place?

“I’m sorry,” he says, uselessly – to Kent, to the girls before Amie; to the universe at large. “I’m sorry everything sucks. I’m sorry for all the times I made it worse. I’m just _sorry_.”

“Not your fault,” Kent croaks into his shirt, and Mads almost jumps to realise Kent is, seemingly, back with him, at least for the moment.

“I know,” Mads says, while thinking, _Not this time, anyway_. “But I’m sorry anyway.”

“Shit.” Kent pulls back; Mads moves his hands away, watching uncertainly as Kent steadies himself. “That was… not fun. But, uh. Thanks.”

Mads shrugs awkwardly. “You shouldn’t have to thank me. And anyway, I promised Day I’d look out for you.”

Kent laughs shakily. “Full disclosure? I’m probably not going to manage much sleep tonight. Or if I do, I’ll probably wake up again because, uh. Nightmares. So, you know. We’re going to be here for a while.”

Mads thinks about this for a moment. “Movie marathon?” he offers. “We can watch, like, the Jurassic Park films or something and order room service, and if anyone hears any weird noises, we’ll just say it was dinosaurs.”

Kent actually smiles at that: the happiest he’s looked since Day got off the phone. “Not to make it weird, but I kind of love you right now.”

“Bro,” says Mads, very seriously, and holds out his fist for a bump. Equally serious, Kent daps their knuckles together – and then he laughs and gets to his feet, and digs out the room service menu.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains references to past noncon and drugging; also allusions to Danno being shitty with women and sexist in general.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day's POV!

Day has never particularly enjoyed the uniquely stressful and frequently rage-inducing experience that is flying while brown in America, but he likes it even less when he’s trying desperately to get to his traumatised boyfriend. Of _course_ he gets pulled aside for a “random” search while going through security; of _course_ he gets told by the white stewardess that he’s in the wrong passenger line before she’s even bothered to check that his ticket is, indeed, that of a first-class passenger. He grits his teeth through her blushing apology, promises himself a very large drink once he’s in his seat, and makes good on that promise at the very first opportunity.

When he texted Mads his flight details, he learned that he and Kent were apparently watching movies as a way to get through the night. Though his phone is now in airplane mode, he pulls it out to reread the reply over and over, needing to reassure himself that Kent is being looked after. Rubbing salt in the wound is the fact that, despite his best intentions, he’d been _hating_ the stupid writers’ retreat and its no internet rules: not only had he been surrounded by predominantly white literary snobs who looked down on journalism as a genesis for fiction, but the food had been _terrible_. He’d been trying to make the best of it, but still half-hoping that he’d get called away for some reason – only now that’s actually happened, and under the worst possible circumstances.

The flight from LAX to LaGuardia takes a little over five hours, nonstop; rationally, Day knows he ought to try and spend it sleeping, but even with a couple of drinks to take the edge off and a first class chair to stretch out in, he can’t stop worrying for long enough to manage anything more than a light, fitful doze. What if Kent does something that Mads doesn’t know how to handle? What if Mads regrets coming out to the pair of them and leaves Kent alone? What if they have a fight, or set each other off, or Swoops comes back and makes everything worse? The endless list of worst-case scenarios won’t leave him alone, and by the time Day finally touches down in New York, he’s physically and emotionally exhausted.

Thanks to the time difference between coasts and the last-minute nature of the flight, it’s a hair shy of 6am, local time, when he stumbles out to the taxi rank and hails a cab to Kent’s hotel. Not only has Mads – beautiful, _wonderful_ Mads, about whom Day will never again speak a single bad word – already texted him Kent’s room number and arranged for Day to be given a keycard by the front desk when he arrives, but he’s also sent a string of Kent updates while Day was in the air. They load now and he reads them in order, hands shaking only slightly.

_were watchin Jurassic park n eatin pizza, he seems ok 4 now_

_he crashed 4 a bit but woke up all freaked so we got all th pillows frm my room in here n made a fort_

_fort update: pillows werent big enouf so we used the 1s from the lounge 2_

_swoops & javvy knocked on th door whn they came back from bar, I yelled @ them 2 fcuk off & kent freaked out again 4 a bit but now were wtching the 2nd film w ice cream in the fort_

_kent says to tell u he feels better now_

_he fell asleep!!_

_he woke up agn but it wasnt as bad as b4. Bro cuddling helped._

_Lmk if u need anthin_

Day shuts his eyes and doesn’t quite cry in the goddamn cab, but it’s a near thing. Instead, he presses his head to the cool window glass and feels the city lights flicker over his face, the driver mercifully silent. Day tips him obscenely for the courtesy once they get to the hotel, braces himself for more microaggressive bullshit when he asks the clerk for Kent’s keycard and almost weeps when she just hands it over instead, and then spends the whole lift ride up to his floor unable to keep still.

When he finally reaches Kent’s room, his hands are so sweaty it takes him three times to work the card; and then the door opens and Day bursts in, his travel bags abandoned in the hallway.

The sight of the pillow fort greets him, two pairs of blanketed legs sticking out the end. Day barks out a startled laugh at the ingenuity of it: rather than make the fort on the bed, they’ve pulled the mattress half off the bedframe and propped it up using the big lounge cushions to make a roof, the other pillows brought inside for comfort and additional support. On the TV screen opposite, a dinosaur is bellowing noisily at a group of dishevelled-looking people, and that’s the moment when Kent sticks his head out and stares at him.

“Hi, _cariño_ ,” Day croaks, exhausted and yearning and _here_.

Kent scrambles to his feet so quickly, he nearly trips over Mads’s legs. Stumbling slightly, he flings himself bodily at Day, an actual koala-leap that thumps their chests together: bare feet hooking around Day’s calves, arms twining around his neck. Day staggers but doesn’t drop him, grabbing on in turn. He means to speak, but Kent fists his hands in Day’s travel-stained shirt and kisses him like he’s starving for it, and Day makes a noise as he kisses back, the whole world falling away. He’s here, _Kent’s_ here, and so nothing else matters. Kent arches against him, letting his feet slip back to the floor as he cups Day’s face and reels him in.

Someone coughs in the background as the movie goes silent: Mads. The pair of them startle apart, Kent biting his lip like a guilty kid. It shouldn’t be possible for a 6’4 enforcer to look remotely sheepish, but Mads does, his shaggy black hair falling into exhausted brown eyes as he shuffles his feet. Day’s luggage is now inside the room – Mads evidently brought his bags in from the hallway without either of them noticing – and at that small consideration on top of so many others, Day gets a lump in his throat.

“Liam,” he says, and Mads freezes in place, eyes going huge as Day hugs him fiercely. He doesn’t quite hug back, though his hands hover over Day’s shoulders, and when Day leans up to kiss his cheek in thanks, Mads goes bright red.

“Thank you,” Day says, voice twisting up. “You… god, thank you. _Thank_ you.”

“Just. Glad to help,” Mads mumbles – and then, as if on cue, his jaw cracks open in a massive yawn.

“You should get some sleep,” says Kent. “Fuck, you’ve been awake all night, you need to rest, okay?”

“I won’t argue with that,” says Mads. He’s still charmingly redfaced, but grinning a little, too.

He makes it all the way to the door before Kent swears and says, “The fort! I’ve got all your pillows, your blankets –”

“Keep them,” says Mads. “Seriously, Parse. If I need more, I’ll call housekeeping, but right now I could probably sleep on a rock.”

“Sleep well,” says Day, which somehow makes Mads blush all over again, and then, with a parting nod to both of them, he slips out into the hall.

Day swallows hard, finally allowing himself to look Kent over properly. His hair is a bedheaded mess, his eyes red-rimmed and shadowed by heavy bags. The nape of his neck is visibly scratched and he looks… thin, somehow. Winnowed down, as if he’s lost part of himself. More slowly this time, Day pulls him in for a hug. Kent whimpers and melts against him, shaking as he clings on tight, and it’s only now that Day lets himself admit the full extent of his own desperate, fearful exhaustion.

“I was so scared for you,” he whispers, cupping the back of Kent’s head. They’re both trembling, trying to push closer together than physics will allow. “I was so… I was so _worried_ –”

He breaks off, squeezing his eyes shut as tears well up. He’s wearing his glasses, not his contact lenses, and something in him aches as Kent reaches up and plucks them gently from his face, lightly kissing each eyelid as the glasses go on the table.

“You came,” Kent says, voice thick. Day opens his eyes and looks at him, and finds that, despite everything, there’s an expression close to wonder on Kent’s face. “You really flew across the country for me. All night. At a moment’s notice.”

“Of course I did.”

“ _Of course_ ,” Kent echoes, tracing Day’s face with his fingertips. His touch is feather-soft, and Day leans into it, drawing strength from fragility. Heart racing, he reaches up and takes hold of Kent’s fingers, bringing each one to his lips and kissing it in turn.

“I’ll always come,” he says. He presses their foreheads together; and then, because the words are too big to stay in anymore, “I love you, Kent.”

Kent inhales sharply. His free hand cups the nape of Day’s neck and squeezes, hard.

“I love you, too.”

Day’s whole body goes weak at that: with relief, with joy, with sheer emotional overload at everything that’s happened. He kisses Kent, then kisses him again, and again, hands smoothing through his fluffed-up hair, until he finally pulls back long enough to ask, “Do you want to lie down in the fort?”

“Please,” says Kent, smiling shakily.

They strip off together, gentle and perfunctory and so intimate still that Day feels half out of his skin with it. They curl up in just their briefs, Kent tucked firmly against Day’s chest, and while the nest of pillows and blankets would undoubtedly seem less comfortable than a mattress at any other time, right now, it’s perfect. Kent laces their fingers together across his torso, the simple gesture settling some part of Day he didn’t know was restless.

Day has spent plenty of time away from and subsequently reunited with partners before now for any number of reasons, many of them emotional, but simply holding them again has never felt as much like coming home – has been as fundamentally _right_ – as holding Kent does now. In that moment, he has the sudden, lightning-bolt realisation that Kent is it for him. He already knew he loved him – obviously, or he wouldn’t have said it – but _this_ , this feeling of absolute certainty, is terrifyingly new and wonderful. It’s not just that Kent was hurt and far away; even before then, Day realises he’d been missing Kent in a way he’s never missed anyone. A dozen times a day at that godawful retreat, he’d wanted to reach for his phone and send Kent a snapchat about this person or that, or just call him, or think up any excuse to skip out and come see him that wouldn’t seem overly needy, and maybe that’s normal for most people, but Day is used to utterly disappearing into his work and his writing even when he hates it. His focus, once established, is absolute; but even when he first flew out from Vegas, laptop open as he edited through his work in progress, he never lost that tangible, peripheral awareness of Kent being somewhere else. He felt the same the first few times Kent played away after the accident and figured it was just him being overprotective, but as tightly bound as his current feelings are with concern for Kent’s wellbeing, he realises now it’s not just that, and never was. He just wants him, pure and simple.      

 As if he’s a mindreader, Kent turns in his arms and presses a kiss to the hinge of Day’s jaw. “I missed you,” he whispers. “I know it was only a few days, but I missed you the whole time.”

Day feels his stupid heart grow three sizes. “Me too, _cariño_ ,” he murmurs back, and kisses Kent’s ruffled hair.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for references to the events of Chapter 2 - so, mention of past, momentary suicidal ideation, victim-blaming and allusions to past abuse.

Safe in his boyfriend’s arms, Kent manages nearly four whole hours of deep, blissful sleep, until his subconscious catches up with the fact that, despite Day’s presence, he still hasn’t dealt with anything that’s happened, and slams him with a nightmare made of memories. Kent thrashes and bucks and screams himself awake, shaking violently, and for a horrible moment, he thinks he’ll have to deal with this alone. Then:

“Oh, sweetheart. Here, here. I’ve got you. You’re safe.”

Day draws him close and Kent sobs, burrowing against him as everything comes rushing back. He’s holding so tightly to Day that, even through his panic and shame, he’s aware his fingers must be digging in hard enough to bruise, but Day says nothing and Kent can’t let go; he feels like he’ll fall off the edge of the world if he so much as lifts his head.

One hand buried in Kent’s hair, the other wrapped firmly around his waist, Day holds onto Kent and murmurs in Spanish under his breath, soothing words whose meaning Kent understands by now, though he hasn’t yet admitted that fact to Day.

“I let him touch me again,” he says instead, voice cracking on the words. “I should’ve – I should’ve _said_ something, should’ve pulled away –”

“It’s not your fault,” Day says, contriving somehow to hold him even closer. “You never should’ve been put in that position.”

“I could’ve made something up –”

“If you’d had time to prepare for it, maybe. But you didn’t, _cariño_. Nobody warned you. That’s _their_ fault, not yours.”

“He said –” Kent says, stomach twisting with sudden nausea, “– he said I _grew up good_. He said to score a goal for him, for _old time’s sake_.” He feels his mouth flood with saliva; his next words come out a gasp. “He said he was fucking _proud_ of me, Day, and I can’t, I – oh, Jesus, fuck, _fuck_ –”

Kent wrenches himself away and up when he realises what’s happening, but as tightly as he and Day were clinging to each other, he doesn’t make it to the toilet in time. He vomits all over the bathroom floor, coughing as he hangs onto the doorframe. He shuts his eyes, hating the acrid smell and the fact that he’s crying; hating his inability to do anything but fall to his knees, watching as Day cleans up with a hotel towel. It’s white, which means it likely won’t survive the experience, and Kent feels an absurd pang of guilt about that, panting around the vile taste in his mouth as Day dumps the soiled towel in the shower, turns the water on, then wets another, smaller towel to wipe up the residue.

“Here,” says Day, when the cleaning’s done. He presses a toothbrush into Kent’s hand, the bristles already covered in toothpaste. There’s a glass of water to go with it, too, and Kent could cry all over again at everything Day does for him that nobody should have to do for anyone. He doesn’t, though: the need to cleanse his palate is too overwhelming. He brushes his teeth and rinses, spitting the foamy water right into the open shower, swilling and spitting three more times until he can swallow cleanly.

“I love you,” he whispers, gripping Day’s wrist. And then, in a sudden burst of terror, “What if I can’t play anymore? What if this fucked me up too much, and I can’t – I dissociated a _whole game_ , Day; I passed up a shot on net, started a fight, and in the locker room, I couldn’t have the trainer work on me, could barely undress around the guys –”

“Breathe, sweetheart,” Day says, stroking his cheek, which is how Kent knows he’d started to hyperventilate. Day waits him out as he sucks in air, his expression soft and fierce all at once, and only when Kent’s breathing somewhere close to normally does he say, with quiet conviction, “Listen to me. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met, and maybe you’ll be justifiably gun-shy about some things after yesterday – maybe even for a while – but I don’t believe for a second you’ll lose hockey because of what happened. You’re _Kent Fucking Parson_ and you always have been, and you always will be. But _if_ – in the unlikely event that, for _any_ reason, including this one, you had to stop playing early – _if_ that ever happened, you would _still_ be Kent Fucking Parson, and I would love you no less than I do right now, okay? And regardless of all that –” Day swallows hard, his big hand cupping Kent’s jaw, “– if you want _him_ dead for what he has done to you – if that’s what you need to feel safe; to be happy – I could… I would do that, for you.”

Kent’s mouth drops open. He looks at Day, waiting for the laughter that ought to follow that sort of offer, except that it never comes. He mentally fumbles through a suite of possible reactions and finally comes up with, “Are you serious?”

“About which part?”

“All of it.” Kent squeezes the wrist he’s still holding, hard. “ _All_ of it. Day –”

“Yes.” Day trembles under his touch, but doesn’t look away.

For a split second, Kent imagines what would happen if he said yes to Day’s crazy offer – _Yes, I want him dead, I want you to do it for me_ – and can’t envisage a future where the guilt of asking such a good, gentle man to involve himself in bloody retribution wouldn’t torture him more than his memories do. But the fact that Day offered anyway – the fact that Kent, in this moment, has no doubt that Day would try to follow through somehow, if that’s what Kent wanted – is almost as touching as it is terrifying.

“Don’t,” Kent says fiercely, grabbing Day’s shoulder. “Don’t, god – don’t _ever_ give anyone that sort of power over you, okay? Least of all me.” He searches for words and, somehow, finds them. “Even if I did think I needed that, the kind of man I’d have to be to ask it of you? He wouldn’t deserve you. He _couldn’t_.”

Day looks suddenly on the brink of tears. “So you don’t –?”

“I don’t,” says Kent, and realises in a horrible, wonderful rush that it’s true. “Fucking hell, Day, I just want you, and hockey, and I think –” he laughs, because it’s that or cry, “– I think I even want them in that order.” He gulps, reaching out to cradle Day’s face in his hands. “I don’t need death to live. Just something to live for.”

Day makes a noise and kisses him in desperate thanks, hands gripping Kent’s thighs for purchase. It’s messy and awkward and Kent doesn’t care; just turns Day’s head and slots their mouths together until – absurdly; perfectly – he starts to laugh. He bows forward, pressing his forehead to Day’s shoulder, then looks up at him, grinning.

“You honestly just offered to kill a man for me. I mean. I can’t decide if that’s chivalric or caveman.”

“Both dot gif?” Day suggests, dryly. He manages to keep a straight face for almost two seconds, then falls about laughing, too, wrapping his arms around Kent’s shoulders, the pair of them breathless with it. Somehow, they end up with Day on his back and Kent sprawled over him, head on his chest.

“I don’t know what I would’ve done if you’d said yes,” says Day, finger-combing Kent’s hair. “Research first, probably.”

“And then something stupid,” says Kent. He leans up, kissing Day’s stubbled chin. “Shower with me?”

“Only if we get rid of that towel, first.”

“Deal,” says Kent, and helps them both get up.

Standing under the warm, soft spray, they press up against each other, Kent’s arms twined around Day’s neck as Day massages shampoo into his hair. The suds drip down their bodies, every brush of skin electric, but even though they’re both hard, breathing heavily in the close, wet air, there’s something fragile about the moment, too; something that keeps the pair of them from trying to take things further. When they’re done, Day dries Kent off with gentle strokes of the remaining towel, Kent catting into every touch. When he’s finally dry, Kent takes the towel and loops it around Day’s back, reeling him close. Water drips down the lean muscles of his chest, gleaming in the light.

Quietly, Kent says, “There was a moment when I… after _he_ was there. I went to be alone. I found a bathroom, a little one. There was bleach, there. In a bottle. And I didn’t, I didn’t really want to, but just for a second –” He breaks off, forcing himself to look Day; to acknowledge the flash of terror in his eyes. “I don’t feel like that now,” says Kent, his grip on the towel tightening. “But I thought. I thought I should tell you anyway.”

“I’m glad you don’t feel like that now,” Day whispers. “Thank you for trusting me.”

Kent makes a noise in the back of his throat. He looks at Day, gaze darting over the planes of his face, the gorgeous coils of his hair, his warm eyes, and takes a steadying breath. Kent hates being bad at things, as Day well knows, which is why he’s kept his Duolingo account a secret, something to keep him occupied on other, less emotionally fraught roadtrips and the rare, Day-free evening. He’s asked Javvy questions about pronunciation once or twice, trying to play it off like it’s no big deal, but it _is_ a big deal, because Kent doesn’t want to fuck it up and knows that’s a possibility. Picking up a smattering of Russian profanities was one thing; trying to actually learn another language for the man he loves is something else entirely.

In careful, faltering Spanish, Kent says, “You are the best thing in my life.”

Day’s eyes go wide with shock. He stares at Kent, then steps in and kisses him fiercely. Kent kisses back, snugging the towel even tighter around Day’s hips in the process, heart hammering wildly. Day’s hands are wet where they cup his face, impossibly cool and warm at the same time, and Kent loses himself in the contact; in the slick, soft press of their mouths.

When Day finally pulls back, his lips look almost as bruised as Kent’s feel. Kent opens his mouth to speak, but finds himself pre-empted by his own loudly rumbling stomach. They both grin, the domestic practicality of it grounding them both.

“Brunch?” Kent asks instead of whatever he’d been going to say.

Day kisses his forehead. “I’d love to.”

They dress quickly after that, though Kent has to root around in his luggage for a spare coat and hat for Day, whose own clothes were chosen for California weather. It’s getting on to midday by then, and even if he hadn’t thrown up twice in the past twenty-four hours, Kent would still be starving. They’re just at the point of checking they’ve got their wallets and phones – including Kent’s broken one, in case they pass an Apple store that might be able to fix it – when someone knocks on the door.

Kent freezes, staring as the knock sounds again. His first impulse is to pretend he’s not there, but then he wonders if it might be Mads, who deserves not to be left hanging.

“Who is it?” he calls out.

“It’s Hells,” comes the door-muffled answer.

Kent and Day exchange a glance. Day shrugs as if to say, _Your call_ , and so Kent sighs and opens the door. Hells stands in the hallway, hands shoved deep in the pockets of an unzipped red hoodie, a toque jammed over his head and a worried look in his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Hells says in a rush, before Kent can speak. “For not warning you about yesterday. Like, I _live_ with Swoops, I had this idea he was planning _something_ ‘cos he was being all smug and dropping hints about it but not telling me, and then when he warned the guys there’d be cameras for you at the Garden, I was like, are you sure this is okay? And he was like, of course, I’ve got it all under control, but I still should’ve given you a heads up, you know? Because I know I’d hate it if the guys did something like that to me with, like, some old friend from middle school or whatever, I’d be super pissed, and anyway, I just – I could see how upset you were, afterwards, and I felt too guilty to say anything, but I wanted you to know that I’m really sorry, and I’ll tell you next time if I think Swoops is planning a dumb thing –”

Hells breaks off abruptly, eyes going wide as Day, in moving to stand with Kent, comes into his field of vision.

“ _Day?_ ” says Hells, goggling.

Kent doesn’t turn to see if Day smiles or not, but his voice sounds perfectly calm when he says, “Hi, Kieran.”

“Aw, fuck.” Hells looks abruptly like he wants to cry. “Jesus, you’re meant to be on the other side of the country; we must’ve really screwed things up for you to fly all the way out here.”

“ _You_ didn’t –” Kent starts, but Day speaks over the top of him, still in that same, calm voice:

“You really did.”

As Hells starts to shrink in on himself, Day sighs and says, “Not you _personally_ , Hells; I meant you, plural. I’m sorry. I know it wasn’t your idea.”

“I still should’ve said something, though,” says Hells, miserably. “Sorry.”

Kent swallows hard. He looks at Day, who looks back at him, determined but also questioning. In a flash, Kent realises Day is silently asking permission to run point on this: to take the lead in speaking to Kent’s friends about what happened. Kent wrestles briefly with the idea – the Aces are his _team_ , Day isn’t a hockey player; this shouldn’t be his business – but the relief of being able to share the burden is too great. And besides which, what happened was personal, not hockey-based, even if hockey did inevitably get dragged into it. If Kent chews the guys out himself, he’ll still be halfway doing so as their captain, and that’s not what this is about. He can speak up if he needs to, but Day… Day can be angry for Kent the person, not the Kent who wears the C.

Incrementally, Kent nods. Day reaches down and squeezes his hand, their fingers tangling together.

“Listen, Hells –” Kent starts, but stops again at the sound of familiar voices shouting down the hallway. He stills, abruptly too nervous to move as Swoops and Javvy jog into view.

“God, finally!” Swoops says, stumbling to a halt. “I was thinking we’d never get to talk to y- Day?”

“You arrogant piece of shit,” Day growls – and before Kent can stop him, Day lunges past both him and Hells and punches Swoops hard in the face.


	8. Chapter 8

Day sees Swoops, and sees red.

He’s moving before he knows he’s moving, fist clenched tight as he spits out a challenge. All the pent-up adrenaline from that awful, haunted moment when he’d been so fucking afraid for Kent that he would’ve killed for him comes roaring back, fuelling the swing of his arm, his forwards rush. There’s a blunt-crush burst of pain as his knuckles connect with Swoops’s face; he’s dimly aware of people shouting, Javvy yelling at him in Spanish, but none of it stops him from taking a second swing. This time, Swoops blocks his strike, Day’s fist glancing off his upraised arm. There’s a split second where Swoops, visibly outraged, gets ready to make a return blow – and then, out of nowhere, Mads rushes in and grapples Swoops in a bear hug, pinning his arms to his sides and pulling him out of Day’s reach.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Mads snaps, “you want this to end up on Deadspin? Get in there, out, out of the fucking hall, come _on_ –”

He starts frogmarching Swoops towards Kent’s room, and then Kent’s hand is on Day’s arm, pulling him backwards with a whispered, “That’s enough, he’s not worth it,” and all the fight goes out of him like air from a punctured tyre. Meek and suddenly exhausted, hand throbbing warmly, he lets himself be drawn aside.

“Sorry,” he whispers, and flushes all over when Kent leans up to kiss his cheek.

“Don’t be.”

There’s a brief logjam as Javvy, Hells and Mads-with-Swoops all try to get through the door at once, and then Hells steps back, the others lurch through and Hells steps in after, shutting the door behind him with a quick, well-aimed kick.

“What the _fuck_?” Swoops blurts, as Mads lets him go. He stares wildly around the room, one hand touching his face like he can’t believe Day actually hit him, let alone the fact that nobody looks as angry about it as he does. _That’s fair,_ Day thinks, coolly. _Before all this, I wouldn’t have believed it, either._

“I wouldn’t say no to an explanation,” says Javvy, glancing from Day to Swoops to Kent and back again. He looks flushed and worried, but there’s a pinch of shame to his mouth, too, like he already has an inkling of what’s to come. Day feels a brief spike of sympathy for him, then squashes it firmly. Javvy is culpable here as well, no matter how tempting it is to place the blame exclusively on Swoops.

“Fucking incredible,” Mads mutters, running a hand down his face. “How the fuck did I ever think any of you were the smart ones?”

Swoops turns to stare daggers at him. “And where did you come from, anyway?”

“My room’s a few doors down,” says Mads. He puts his back to the wall and slides down until he’s sitting comfortably, forearms braced on his knees. “I heard you assholes yelling and figured shit was about to go down, so I came to help.”

“And why would you think that?” snaps Swoops. “What, you knew he was going to hit me?”

“No,” says Mads. “But I knew you deserved it.” Swoops snorts in response, and Mads growls, “I fucking wouldn’t, if I were you.”

Swoops opens his mouth to retort, but finally seems to realise that the rest of the room is incongruously silent. Day looks at Kent, trying to gauge his mood, and feels a spike of pride and relief when, rather than shrinking in on himself, Kent takes a step forward and says, voice astonishingly level, “Do you have any idea who that was you let into the locker room, yesterday?”

Swoops looks shocked. “Was Andrea not… was she not really your foster-mother?”

“Christ,” Mads mutters; Kent lets out a bark of ugly laughter. Day steps closer as he does so, resting his throbbing hand on the small of Kent’s back.

“She was, yes,” says Kent, and now Day can hear the tension creeping into his voice; can feel the way his pulse ticks up. He wishes he could take over for him, but this part – the choice of how much truth to reveal or conceal – is Kent’s decision, not his. “Did it ever occur to you that there’s a _reason_ why I’m not in contact with her?”

Javvy turns ashen at the implications, as does Hells; Day feels viciously satisfied. Swoops, though, still looks baffled in a way that makes Day want to throttle him.

“But she’s not a homophobe,” says Swoops, so naively that even Hells groans. Swoops flinches at the collective sound, glancing around like a hunted thing. “I checked that out first. I made sure –”

“And the man she brought with her?” Kent says, voice hard and jagged. “Did you check him out, too?”

Swoops freezes, mouth snapping shut as he finally seems to realise the shit he’s in.

“Well?” Day asks, with acid pleasantness. “ _Did_ you check him out, Jeffrey?”

“You told me you did,” says Javvy, a thread of anger working into his voice. “You told me and Racker, you _swore_ to us that they’d both be okay –”

Swoops swallows, hard. In a very small voice, he says, “Andrea told me he was a cop. I thought –”

“Are you fucking _kidding_ me?” snarls Javvy, lunging forwards. This time, it’s Hells who intervenes, one lanky arm wrapped around Javvy’s torso to keep him away from Swoops. Javvy doesn’t fight the hold, but he doesn’t stop yelling, either. “You – I can’t fucking _believe_ this, Jeff – after all the shit we’ve talked about, you just – you thought that his _being a fucking cop_ was the same as his being a decent guy? _That’s_ what you’re fucking telling me? Telling _me_ , of all people?” 

Swoops looks too terrified to answer; his shoulders are up around his ears, eyes wide as he looks pleadingly at Kent.

“Parser, I’m sorry –”

“No,” says Kent, soft and deadly. “Don’t you fucking _dare_ apologise when you don’t know what you’ve done.” He’s shaking under Day’s touch, hands clenched into fists at his side. “If you had any idea – if you had _any fucking idea_ what you’ve put me through with this – if you knew –”

He chokes into silence, turning aside and pressing his face into Day’s chest. Day folds him into a protective embrace, glaring furiously at the rest of the room, daring anyone to pass so much as a scrap of judgement on Kent. He feels Kent inhale deeply; Day strokes his neck and back, soothing him, and after a moment, Kent shudders and straightens, chin up as he looks at Swoops.

“If you really knew,” Kent says, softly, “you’d hate yourself.”

Swoops visibly pales. His jaw works soundlessly for a moment, before he finally chokes out, “Does that mean you hate me now?”  

Kent shuts his eyes, and the whole room holds its breath until he opens them again.

“No, Swoops,” Kent says, brittle and sad. “I don’t hate you. But even if I forgive you for this, it’s going to be a long fucking time before I trust you again.”

Swoops looks stricken. He digests that for a moment, and then says, voice far raspier than it was a moment ago, “And if I knew? If… if you told me what I did, and I tried to learn from it, would that make things better?”

Day tenses up, ready to intervene in a heartbeat. Kent shudders and says, “Maybe.”

“Then tell me,” Swoops begs. “I need to try and fix this. Please, Kent – Javvy’s right, I dragged him into this because I thought I knew what the hell I was doing; Racker told us both it was a bad idea, and I didn’t listen to him, either. I just… I know it’s stupid, but I get chirped all the time for needing a rookie to look after me, and I wanted to do something _right_ off the ice for once, you know? But I still fucked it up. And I need to know how and why, so I don’t ever do it again.”

He hangs his head, and Day’s stomach twists. From his spot on the wall, Mads murmurs, “Aw, shit.”

“All right,” Kent whispers – to himself; to the room at large. “All right.”

Swoops looks up at him, waiting. Kent starts to shake, mouth twitching on words he doesn’t seem able to form. Day’s heart break a little at that, but with pride as much any other emotion. He knows how far Kent has come, and in how short a time, for this conversation to even be happening in the first place, but that doesn’t mean he’s not still going to check in about it. Putting a hand on Kent’s shoulder, he dips his head and murmurs, “Are you sure? You don’t owe them this. You don’t have to say anything.”

Kent flashes him a watery smile, lifting a hand to cover Day’s. “I know, _cariño._ ”

It takes a conscious act of will not to lean in and kiss him. None of Day’s former partners ever bothered to pick up any Spanish; not his preferred endearments, and certainly not enough to get out a whole, profound sentence, like Kent did earlier. It’s something he hasn’t had time to process yet, but it warms him all the way through regardless, sparking that sense of _it’s him, it’s just him_ that he’s felt since the moment he got here.

“All right,” Kent says again, and drags his attention away from Day and back to the others. He takes a shaky breath, still squeezing Day’s hand on his shoulder. “So. Before I say anything, you should, uh. You should know I’m seeing a therapist for all this stuff – not Mary, though. A specialist. I’m… I’m getting better at coping, but. It’s always… for as long as you guys have known me, this shit has always been there. Management doesn’t know, though, and I’d prefer to keep it that way.” His lips twist, a parody of a smile. “I never wanted anyone to know. But, well. What you want and what you need aren’t always the same thing, right? Least of all for me.”

He pauses, and Day feels his own pulse start to race.

Very softly, his eyes on the floor, Kent says, “The man who came yesterday. Gary. He. From when I first met him, he groomed me. Made me think that he, what he wanted from me, was normal if you were gay. But it wasn’t.” He swallows, hard, and chokes out, “He’s a paedophile. He had me from eleven to fourteen. It only stopped when I went to the Q, and I never knew it was wrong until after the draft. Andrea had no idea; nobody did. Which is why she thought it was okay to bring him to see me. All she knows is that we used to spend a lot of time together. She thought he was mentoring me.” He gives a single bleak, twisted laugh at the irony. “Yesterday was the first time I’ve seen him since then. I couldn’t handle it. I shouldn’t have _had_ to handle it. And now you know. You know everything.” And he turns back to Day again, shaking like a leaf as Day pulls him tight and cradles the back of his head, heart brimming with furious love.

Javvy is ashen, Hells wide-eyed, while Mads, who already knew, just looks tired and angry. But worst of all is Swoops, who’s gone so utterly white with shock that he looks in real danger of fainting. He sways on his feet and meets Day’s gaze over the top of Kent’s head. Day looks steadily back, devoid of sympathy, watching the play of horrified microexpressions over Swoops’s face.

After a span of seconds that feel like an eternity, Swoops says to Kent, in this strange, faint-choked voice, “You’re right. I do hate myself.” And then, looking back at Day, “I get why you punched me, now. I’d have punched me, too.”

Day doesn’t say anything in response to that. He does, however, say something else.

“Unless you have Kent’s express permission, none of this leaves the people in this room. Do you understand me?”

Everyone nods; even Mads.

Kent lifts his head and looks at Javvy. “You can tell Racker, and he can tell Zora. But no one else. Not yet.”

Javvy nods, throat bobbing. “Of course.” He looks like he wants to apologise, too, but doesn’t; just shoots Day a pleading look that Day, in this precise moment, elects to ignore.

Day waits a beat, looking around the room. When no-one else speaks, he says, “I think we’d like you to leave now, please.”

It’s not a request, and the Aces know it. Swoops sways on his feet, unsteady in every sense. He looks at Hells, and Hells openly snubs him, shaking his head and striding past to yank the door open. Javvy shoulder-checks him on his way past, and none too gently, not bothering to look around as he follows Hells into the hallway.

Mads gets slowly to his feet, lips twisted as he looks at Day. “You need any help with anything, you know where I am,” he says, gruffly. Day smiles at him, warm and grateful, and wonders why the tips of Mads’s ears are suddenly red.

Mads walks past Swoops to get to the door, then falters on the threshold. He turns, as neither Hells nor Javvy turned, and looks at Swoops, who’s just sort of standing there, shell-shocked and silent. Mads visibly hesitates, biting his lip, then swears under his breath and goes back for Swoops, grabbing hold of his arm and tugging him into motion.

“Come on, asshole,” he says, as Swoops stumbles after him. “Let’s give them some space, hey?”

The last thing Day hears as the door swings shut is Mads sighing heavily, and then he’s once more alone with Kent, who hasn’t budged an inch since he finished speaking. Day kisses the top of his head, hands smoothing gently over Kent’s shoulders, arms, back.

“I can’t believe I did that,” Kent says, face still pressed to Day’s borrowed coat. “I told them. I actually _told_ them.”

“You did.”

“I told them, and the world didn’t end.” Kent pulls back a little to look at him and laughs, the sound small and incredulous. “They didn’t freak out or yell. They just… listened.”

“They’re your friends,” says Day, a little choked up. “They all love you, in their dumb hockey way. You’re easy to love. But they failed you in this, and they hate to fail their captain even more than they hate to fail their friend. Of course they listened.”

“ _Of course_ ,” Kent mimics facetiously. He curls his fingers around Day’s nape, lips hinting at a smile. “They listened because _you_ were here, the same way you got Jack to listen. You have this, this _thing_ you do where you make me, I don’t know… more real, somehow, just by standing next to me. You make me make sense to people. You’re magic, Day.” And before Day can muster a counterargument, Kent leans up and kisses him, so thoroughly and so sweetly that whatever Day was going to say flies clear out of his head.

When they finally pull apart, Day takes a steadying breath and asks, “Do you still want to go out?”

Kent considers a moment. “I… think I kind of do, actually. Like, I’m still – inside, I’m still pretty shaky, but I’ve already spent enough time being freaked in a hotel room, so even if I’m still freaked outside, at least it’s a change of scenery.” He reaches down, linking their fingers together, and bumps his head affectionately against Day’s shoulder. “Go on, then. Take me to lunch.”

Smiling, Day does just that.


	9. Chapter 9

Mads hauls Swoops into his room, already regretting his choices. Swoops moans and staggers over to the bedside chair, thumping down with his head in his hands. Mads watches him for a moment, filled in equal parts with disgust and sympathy. Shit would be so much easier if he could just leave the poor asshole to fend for himself, but, well. It wasn’t so long ago that Mads was the one in the doghouse for making bad decisions, and he doesn’t like to think how that might’ve ended up if Kent hadn’t reached out to let him know he was still part of the team, so he figures this is, like, paying it forwards or something. Still, he’s fucking exhausted and has a low-ass tolerance for Swoops’s self-pitying bullshit even on a good day, so he figures he ought to treat himself accordingly.

“You want a drink?” he says, heading over to the minibar. It’s not the world’s best selection, but Mads isn’t feeling especially picky. “There’s one of those weird mini champagnes, that seems like your sort of hipster-ironic thing.”

“Sure,” says Swoops, into his hands. “Why not. Why fucking not.”

“Catch,” says Mads, and tosses him the bottle. Swoops fails like a muppet and somehow manages not to drop it. Mads shrugs at his affronted glare and pours the lone mini JD into a glass, mixing it with coke. He’s tempted to neck the whole thing on principle, but it’s not like the bar is magically self-replenishing, so. Restraint, after a fashion.

There’s a moment of silence as Swoops picks the foil off the champagne bottle and Mads sits down on the bed, back propped against the headboard as he stretches his legs.

“Don’t take it personally if I nod off,” he says, sipping his drink. “I was up all night with Parse until Day got here, so I’m pretty thrashed.”

Swoops stills, the ripped foil dropping silently to the carpet. “You _knew_?”

“Only since last night. Shit’s fucked up.”

There’s a muted pop as Swoops uncorks the bottle, taking an angry swig. He makes a disgusted face, then says, “But you… on the bus, after the meeting. You kept me away from him. You must’ve known _something_ then.”

Mads shrugs. “Well, yeah. He was pretty clearly freaked, dude. And I figured, I’ve done enough fucking up this year, so I tried to help.”

Swoops laughs bitterly. “Congratulations, then. You’re way better at this than me.”

“No shit,” says Mads, bluntly. He lets some anger into his voice, half because it’s justified and half because he’s legitimately curious to see how Swoops reacts. “The fuck were you _thinking_ , pulling a stunt like that? What sort of fucking picket-fence fantasyland do you live in where a gay dude who grew up in foster care doesn’t have any dark shit in his past?”

“I don’t know.” Swoops takes a long swig of champagne, lips twisting bitterly for a half a second before his expression collapses into utter misery. He’s trembling a little, though still disturbingly pale, even by hockey standards. “I thought I was doing something nice for him. _Andrea_ was nice.”

“Picket-fence fantasyland,” Mads mutters.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Mads takes a long, well-deserved sip of JD and coke. “It means you grew up with such a nice, happy family in a nice, happy home that you think niceness is, like, a moral quality or some shit. Like, you meet someone new who clears the lowest possible bar for human decency, and you think it means they’re a good person, because it’s never fucking occurred to you that assholes can actively hide the fact that they’re assholes.”

“I’m not _naïve_ ,” Swoops says, a little snappishly. “I know awful shit happens in the world; I just don’t go around assuming that everyone I meet is a secret monster. Is that such a bad thing?”

Mads stares at him. “If it makes you think you know more and better about the people in someone else’s life than they do, just because they seem _nice_? Then yeah, bro, it’s a fucking _terrible_ thing. Like, sure, trust whoever the fuck you want if it’s on your own dime, that’s no skin off my nose, but fuck, that doesn’t mean it’s okay to make that choice for other people. And don’t fucking front with me, either: you _knew_ you were risking a shitshow with this, and not just ‘cos Javvy and Racker told you so. If you really, truly thought it would all be fine because Andrea was _nice_ , you wouldn’t have bothered to set a time limit on how long she and Rapestick McGee were in the locker room – but you did, because you knew Parse might need a quick out.”

A sudden thought occurs to him, and he sits up sharply, coke sloshing over his hand. “You need to call Lucy _right fucking now_. You call her and tell her you fucked up bigtime – _without_ giving deets – and tell her to delete every fucking video and snap and photo from yesterday, or it’ll be _both_ your asses. The last thing Parse needs right now is half a dozen smiley shots of him and that asshole up on fucking Twitter.”

What little colour Swoops has drains from his face. “Oh Jesus _shit_ ,” he breathes, and nearly drops the champagne in his rush to get his phone out. Mads shuts his eyes as much to avoid the second-hand embarrassment as because of anything else, and tries very hard not to think about how he felt when Day smiled at him, because no, absolutely not, under _no circumstances whatsoever_ is that a thought he’s allowed to entertain. He takes another drink, still with his eyes closed, and forces himself to listen to the absolute trainwreck that is Swoops, a supposedly grown-ass man, frantically begging their baby social media intern to _“please delete everything from yesterday because I’m an idiot, I’ll do any stupid promo you like for the rest of forever, just please please_ please _tell me nothing’s already on Snapchat.”_

Swoops is deathly silent as Lucy, presumably, answers him. Mads flicks his gaze to the ceiling, quietly praying to a god he’s never believed in for the patience to deal with idiots.

“Oh,” says Swoops, faintly. “Oh. That’s – uh. Well, that’s… thank you, Lucy. Yeah. Yeah, please, if – yeah. Okay. Thanks again.”

Swoops ends the call. Mads waits a second, then looks at him, one eyebrow raised in query.

“Well?”

“She, uh. She was meant to be posting stuff live, yesterday, but – but she didn’t.” He gives an empty sort of laugh. “She said she hadn’t wanted to get in trouble, but that Kent looked really upset at what was happening, and they all get taught in PR classes that the golden rule is never to post anything unless you’re 100% certain it won’t cause a problem, so. She thought she’d wait to speak to everyone tomorrow, see how everyone felt, before she posted her footage. She’ll tell the other guys to hold off, too, but they were always going to have to do editing and stuff first.”

Mads feels a sick, twisty kick of relief behind his ribcage. Reaching into his pocket for his own phone – he figures that’s something Day and Kent ought to know sooner rather than later – he says, “You owe that girl your fucking _life_ , man, I’m not even kidding. There is no amount of money too big to spend on whatever thankyou gift you buy her. Fucking, like, name your first-born after her, even.”

“Jesus. Shit. Jesus, you are _not wrong_.” Swoops takes a shaky swig of champagne, followed by a long-throated gulp. Mads texts with one hand, watching the movement of Swoops’s throat from the corner of one eye. As Mads fires off his missive to Day, Swoops wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, then sets the empty bottle down with a muted thump. He stares at the floor for a long, pointed moment, then says, in the most subdued voice that Mads has ever heard from him, “Why the fuck am I such a disaster?”

“You mean today, or in general?”

“Both. Either.” He scrubs a hand through his mess of brown hair. “I don’t know. It’s like, I get it, okay? I’m useless. I’ve always been useless. I can’t live on my own, I can’t get a date, I don’t know how to adult if I’m not playing hockey, and the one time I try to do something big for someone else, I basically set every friendship I have on fire.”

“But you didn’t do it for someone else, you asshole,” Mads says, exasperated. “You literally just told us you did it for _you_ , so we’d all stand around and go _oh, hey, Swoops did good!_ You weren’t actually trying to grow the fuck up; you just wanted us to cheer and clap like you had, and you used your friend’s private life to try and do it. Which is the fucking _opposite_ of growing up, dude, even _I_ know that.” He takes a vindictive sip of his drink, which is starting to warm him nicely. “You’re like a fucking toddler getting into his dad’s toolshed and ruining his setup, because you don’t understand there’s a difference between, like –” he gestures with his glass, trying to remember how Mary had put it once, “– _performing_ something and _being_ something.”

“Jesus,” Swoops says, sharp and wounded. “Tell me what you really think!”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” snarks Mads, putting his glass down as he swings his legs over the edge of the bed, the better to glare at Swoops head-on. “Should I be sparing your fucking _feelings_ right now, or do you actually want to stop fucking shit up?”

“You don’t have to be such a dick about it!” Swoops snaps back. “You think I don’t feel like utter shit already?”

“I think you could stand to feel shittier, if you still think you’ve got a case to plead!”

“I don’t!” Swoops shouts. “I fucking _know_ that, okay? I’ve ruined _everything_!” His voice cracks on the word; he looks like he’s fighting tears. “I never get to not have done this, not ever again. I will always be the guy who did this. Kent and Javvy and Hells – and Racker, once he finds out – they’re my best friends in the fucking world, and all of them hate me, and all of them _should_.”

“You think I don’t know what that feels like?” Mads shouts back, furious. He stands without meaning to, heart pounding as Swoops does likewise. Mads steps forwards, getting into Swoops’s grill like he would with an enemy D-man. “You remember who my best friend was until about five fucking minutes ago? You remember what _he_ did? What _I_ let him do?”   

“Yeah, I fucking remember!” Swoops shoves at him, hard, but not hard enough for Mads to lose his footing. “But you managed to turn that around pretty fucking fast!”

Stung, Mads grabs Swoops’s shirt, the material twisting in his grip. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means –” Swoops grabs at his bicep and shoulder, trying unsuccessfully to break Mads’s grip, “– that at least _you_ knew how to fix your shit! This _was_ me trying to fix my shit, and instead I just shat on everyone I care about!”

“Bullshit!” They grapple for a moment, shoving angrily back and forth. “You weren’t trying to _fix_ anything, you dumbass pheasant! You were doing it for the fucking look-how-I’m-fixed _aesthetic_!” He bares his teeth. “You were _pretending_!”

“Stop fucking _saying_ that!” Swoops spits, grabbing hold of Mads’s collar. “You – stop saying that like it means anything!”

“It means _everything_!” Mads yanks on him, hard, which spins them around, putting Swoops’s back to the bed. “Admit it! Admit you were fucking pretending!”

“ _Everything is pretending!_ ” Swoops half-yells, half-sobs. Still hanging onto Mads’s collar, he rips his other hand off his arm and starts hitting him with it, closed fist thumping his shoulder like a punctuating gavel. “ _Every single adult thing is fucking pretending, all the fucking time! Pretend you know what the fuck you’re doing, pretend you know how you’re meant to dress –”_

“Fucking stop it!” Mads snarls, trying and failing to snatch the beating fist. He lunges forward, shoving them both backwards, and there’s an unsteady moment as Swoops’s leg hits the mattress. But Swoops doesn’t stop and he doesn’t quiet; just keeps on yelling.

 _“– pretend you know how dating works, pretend you know what the fuck women want, pretend you know what the fuck_ you _want, pretending –”_

“It’s not _pretending_!” Mads shouts, shaking him as hard as he can. His heart is racing wildly, adrenaline surging through his veins. “Jesus fucking Christ, Swoops, that’s not how it works! Life isn’t meant to feel like fucking _pretending_ all the time!”

Swoops makes a wrenching noise. “ _Then what the fuck else is there to feel, huh?_ ” He grabs onto Mads with his free hand again, fingers digging in like claws. “You fucking tell me, Liam, what the _fuck else_ is there to f– ”  

Mads kisses him, hard and furious.

Swoops freezes up for all of a second, grip tightening on collar and arm – and then he kisses back like a hurricane, push-pull-push as Mads gets a hand in his stupid hair and tugs until Swoops whimpers. He breaks the kiss but keeps his hold, staring ragged-shocked at Swoops, whose eyes are as wide as his own. They’re both breathing hard; Swoops drops his gaze to Mads’s lips, then raises it again, half fearful, half pleading.

“We shouldn’t,” Mads rasps out. His whole body feels like it’s burning up; like he doesn’t know whether to fight flee or fuck and so is stuck wanting to do all three at once. He flattens his grip on Swoops’s shirt, palm smoothing flat over fabric and muscle. His tongue feels too big in his mouth. “This is,” he says, “a _really_ bad idea.”

Swoops shrills a laugh, high and hysterical. “You say that like I’ve ever had a good one in my fucking life,” he shoots back, and leans in to kiss Mads hungrily.

 _Fuck it,_ Mads thinks, and shoves Swoops down onto the bed, the two of them landing with a jolt. Swoops groans and grabs at him, mouth suddenly everywhere at once. Mads shoves a thigh between Swoops’s legs, choking out a pained noise when he feels Swoops grind against him, already hard. He’s got just enough functional brain left to realise that he’s got no idea what the fuck he’s doing and that Swoops likely doesn’t, either; and that ought to be significant, it _really should_ , but then Swoops leans up to bite-suck right under Mads’s ear, and oh, it is fucking _on_.       

“You little fucker,” Mads gasps, grabbing blindly for Swoops’s hands and yanking them up above his head. He pins them there, outstretched, and Swoops makes this unbelievable _noise_ , his mouth falling open as his head thumps back. Mads dives in to kiss him quiet, rutting his own hips down as Swoops strains up.

“Fuck,” Swoops gasps. He’s not a small guy, but Mads’s hands are big enough that he only needs one to hold both Swoops’s wrists, and when Mads dares to skate his free hand up and under Swoops’s shirt, he feels him shaking, heart to ribs.

 _He’s_ shaking, too, breath coming in panted gasps. The realisation is like being hit with a bucket of cold water: he rears back, letting go of Swoops and moving his leg, so that he’s kneeling upright and astride him.

“I’m.” He gulps the word, abruptly terrified. “I’ve never done this before.”

Swoops lets out another strained laugh. “Me, neither.”

“Are you… is this okay?”

“Yeah.” Swoops looks dazed, but still on the right side of lucid. He sits up a little, propping himself on his elbows. He runs his tongue over his bottom lip, staring at Mads like he’s never seen him before. “Yeah, this… _fuck_. This is good.”

Slowly, trembling, Mads pulls off his shirt, goosebumps prickling his skin at the way Swoops looks him over. Just as slowly, Swoops shifts his weight to the flat of one palm, then runs the other up Mads’s torso, watching with something like awe as the well-defined muscles flex under his fingers.

“I never,” he whispers, seemingly without volition. And then, gaze desperate as he looks up again, “Is this pretending, too?”

Mads puts a hand of his own on Swoops’s stomach, shuddering as he rolls into the touch. “What do you think?”

Swoops holds his gaze for a moment that burns like whiskey. “Real,” he breathes, and pulls Mads down on top of him.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings in the end notes.

The thing about sex with girls, Mads thinks distantly, is that there’s an obvious physical endgame. At a certain point, you stop grabbing and grinding and start fucking, but even now that he and Swoops are fully naked, he’s got no clue what’s meant to happen next. Or, well: he knows what _could_ happen, if he had proper lube and a cheat sheet for ass stuff and if either of them was reckless enough to ask for it, but he’s only got his normal lube, which is apparently inadequate, and as hot as Swoops is right now, no way does Mads want to try and walk the pair of them through _that_ particular sexual first.   

And Swoops _is_ hot, which – Jesus, that’s a mindfuck right there. He’s responsive as hell, sweaty and flushed all over as he arches up under Mads, one leg hiked around his hip and the other splayed wantonly open. They’re rightway up on the bed this time, Mads pinning his wrists one-handed again because Swoops seems to really, _really_ like it, while the other grips the underside of his thigh for balance, clinging on as they kiss and rut like idiot teenagers.

“What do you want?” Mads pants, lifting up just long enough to mouth at Swoops’s neck. They’re being stupidly careless about leaving marks, and maybe that’s gonna haunt him later, but he doesn’t give a shit right now, too high on the craziness of it all. “You want me to make a mess of you?”

“’m already a mess,” Swoops gasps, whimpering as Mads scrapes his teeth over reddened skin.

“Jesus, I hate you,” Mads growls, gripping his wrists just that little bit harder. “Stop fucking _wallowing_ , would you? It’s not fucking _about_ you this time. No-one _cares_ about your _feelings_!”

“You do,” says Swoops, and hooks his free leg around Mads’s waist, the sudden body-shift tipping Mads forwards while folding Swoops nearly in half. They both make a shocked noise at the new, sweat-slicked angle, cocks trapped tight together against Swoops’s belly. It’s maddening, an endless edging tease that has Mads half out of his head. “You care.”

“I don’t.”

“Do.”

“Don’t.”

“Prove it, then,” Swoops pants, so Mads drops his leg – Swoops keeps it hitched up under his own steam, ankles locking in the small of his back – and slides that hand up to his left nipple. He pinches it, harder than he ever would with a girl, and Swoops _keens_ , head thrashing back and forth on the pillow. Mads does it again and again, alternating randomly from one side to the other, until tears are leaking from the corners of Swoops’s eyes.

“Prove it,” Swoops begs again, so Mads rakes his fingernails down his pecs, hard enough to score white marks in the reddened skin. He watches the shift, then licks the lines and blows on them, sharp to gentle-cool. It’s something a girl once had him do on her inner thighs, and Swoops goes wild with it, bucking against the hold Mads has on his wrists. Mads does it again, a little harder, and again, something in him thrilling as the marks gleam and pale.

“Do you even,” Mads gasps, head spinning headily, “have any fucking idea what we’re doing right now?”

“I don’t know.” Swoops shuts his eyes and shoves his hips up. “I don’t – just don’t, don’t stop, I don’t – I don’t know how to _be_ like this –”

“You’re such an asshole,” Mads croaks, and kisses him, deep and soft, sucking on the swell of his bottom lip. His free hand rests on Swoops’s cheek, thumbing the tears away. He lifts up just enough for their foreheads press together, hips rocking in nameless rhythm. “I don’t even like you.”

“Feeling’s mutual,” Swoops gasps. He digs his heels into Mads’s ass, urging him closer. “Come on, just – just –”

“Just what?” Mads presses his head to Swoops’s shoulder, breathing hard. “You want it, you gotta ask for it.”

“ _Just make me come_.” Swoops makes a noise that’s half a sob as Mads twists his free hand down between them and grabs their dicks, groaning at how wet they both are. He can’t quite close his fingers all the way around them together, not without squeezing too hard, but they’re both so keyed up that it hardly matters. Swoops’s legs lock up like a vice; he bares his sweat-sheened throat and comes after less than ten strokes, white striping over the scratches Mads left on his chest. The sight of it tips Mads over the edge, his own come adding to the mix.

He strokes them through the aftershocks, then puts his hand on the mattress, bracing. Swoops’s eyes flutter, but don’t quite close. With belated gentleness, Mads lifts his hold on Swoops’s crossed wrists, the pale skin already ripe with the promise of bruises.

“Shit,” Mads murmurs. He sits up for a moment, hesitates, then lets himself flop down alongside Swoops, watching him cautiously. Swoops is slow to move, wincing as he pulls his hands down to face-level and twists them back and forth, inspecting the damage.

“I can, uh,” he starts, fumbling as Swoops looks at him. “If they’re sore, I mean. Your wrists. I could look at them.”

Swoops shakes his head, fingers flexing as he sets his hands carefully on the mattress. “It’s fine,” he says, and oh, no, Mads is not going to be responsible for putting _that_ forced tone in someone’s voice.

“It’s not fine. Not if I hurt you.”

Swoops grits his teeth. “I _wanted_ you to hurt me,” he says – and then snaps his mouth shut, confusion and a little fear on his face.

“Swoops –”

“I need to go.” He sits up suddenly, come sliding down his chest. “I shouldn’t be here, I shouldn’t –”

“No.” Mads lurches up and grabs his shoulder, forcing Swoops to look at him. “No, don’t you fucking _dare_ bolt off.  We both did this, and we’re both adults, and I think we’ve got some pretty compelling evidence that not talking about personal shit is a bad idea, so no, we’re _not_ going to play some bullshit no homo fratboy card to pretend this didn’t happen.” He makes a disgusted noise, then says, “But we _are_ gonna get you cleaned up first, Jesus. Come on.” And then, because a part of him is eternally twelve, “Or come off, really. Heh.”

He tugs a wobbly Swoops into the bathroom, wetting a washcloth and wiping him clean. Swoops hisses at the sting to his scratches, and Mads says again, more quietly than before, “I should’ve asked, before doing that.”

“I begged for it.” Swoops looks at the tiles, the drain. “You didn’t do anything I didn’t want.”

“Still, though.”

He sets the cloth aside, then tows Swoops back to the main room and, after a moment’s awkward consideration, into bed and under the covers, which seems like the most sensible compromise between getting dressed and having their junk on display. Swoops complies quietly, lying down on his side with his head on the pillow. Mads mirrors him, putting them face to face.

Mads waits for Swoops to speak, but he doesn’t say anything. The silence makes him feel naked in a way that goes beyond clothes or blankets, prickling at his skin.

Finally, he asks, “How long have you known?”

Swoops quirks his mouth, though the rest of his face stays strangely blank. “Since now, I guess.”

Mads jerks back, startled. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah.” Swoops laughs shakily, staring at him. He looks like he’s made out of porcelain, and Mads is still so angry at him on Kent’s behalf, sex or no sex, but it’s hard to remember that when he looks like he’s two wrong words away from breaking. “Is sex always like that, for you?”

“Always like what? Rough?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know. Maybe. I just –” he makes an odd little noise, and then says in this faint, watery voice. “Mads? I think I’m gay.”

“Well, duh,” says Mads, rolling his eyes to indicate their in-bed-togetherness. “You’re clearly some kind of not straight.”

“No, not – I mean. I mean _gay_ , gay. Like. I don’t like women?” And then, small and breathless, “Oh, god.”

 _Shit_ , thinks Mads. He’d figured Swoops was _something_ , what with the pre-sex grabbing and all that stuff about pretending, but that’s… Mads has _seen_ Swoops with women. Never, admittedly, to any great effect – it’s a running joke in the locker room that Swoops is _terrible_ at wheeling, never knows how to hang onto a girlfriend, always manages to self-sabotage his efforts at picking up by doing something embarrassing at the last minute –

Oh.

_Oh._

“Fuck,” says Mads, with feeling. He gropes around for something to say, and somehow comes up with, “Guess that white-picket bullshit screwed you up in more ways than one, huh?”

“Guess so,” says Swoops. He rolls onto his back, staring blankly up at the ceiling. His voice, when he speaks again, is detached. “I always thought I was bad in bed. I’d get a girl off, but it didn’t do anything for me, and I’d always have to think about porn in my head. Straight porn, obviously. I’d feel shitty about it, like I was disrespecting whoever I was with, but I couldn’t come, otherwise. Figured I was just one of those douchebag guys who didn’t know how to fuck right.”

Mads winces with unwelcome sympathy. “There’s guys in straight porn. You had to think about them.”

“Guess so,” Swoops says again. “Guess I’ve been pretending about a lot of things.”

“I’ve done that, too,” says Mads, quietly. “I’m, uh. I mean, I’m bi, but I didn’t… I didn’t let myself admit it until super recently. The way I grew up… let’s just say, I learned pretty quick what kind of guy it was safe to be, and what wasn’t. And then all that stuff with Parse went down, and – and Danno, and I just… I couldn’t lie to myself anymore.”

“I just don’t understand.” The words come out sounding lost. “My parents aren’t homophobic. _I’m_ not homophobic. So why didn’t I know? How the hell is it even possible to be that fucking _stupid_?”

“Mary says, uh –” Mads starts, then realises what he’s just given away, freezing as Swoops turns sharply to look at him.

“You see Mary about this stuff?”

Mads hunches defensively. “A little, I guess. It’s new. But.” He waits, half expecting Swoops to chirp him for it, then rushes on when he doesn’t, “She says there’s this thing she’s read about that’s, like, a problem for dudes like us, in really masculine settings? Uh. She, uh, she says it’s called _compulsory heterosexuality_ , which is basically, like, you’re so used to straight being the default that even if nobody around you is being actively shitty about gay dudes or whatever, you still never stop to think that you might be one, because you’re brought up to be normal and you think being straight is part of that, even if you’re actually not. Like… like being left-handed when you’re only ever allowed to use your right, you know? You grow up thinking there’s only one proper way to hold a pen, and if nobody ever tells you that being left-handed is an option, you just keep on trying to write everything the hard way.”

“God. Yeah, okay. Yeah. _Fuck._ ” Swoops looks like he wants to cry, and sure, he’s still a dumb idiot, but they’re way past bros territory here and Mads is sick of his teammates feeling like shit, so he scoots over and pulls Swoops into a hug. It’s awkward at first, because Swoops clearly wasn’t expecting it, but then he gets with the program and hugs Mads back, arms slung over waists as their legs tangle together, Swoops’s head tucked under Mads’s chin.

They’re silent like that for a long moment. Mads swallows hard at the casual intimacy of having an actual naked dude-who-he’s-fucked all cuddled up in his arms, which is sort of a big-ass deal for him, even if it _is_ Swoops, and wonders what the etiquette is if either of them gets hard again.

“You know what I keep thinking?” Swoops says.

“What?”

“I keep thinking, how the hell is Parse so fucking brave about everything? What he told us, I can’t… I physically can’t get my head around something that awful. I keep, I keep trying to think about what it was like for him, and my brain just –” he lifts his hand from Mads’s side, makes a zooming motion accompanied by a soft _brrm_ , “– right off, you know? But suddenly we’re doing this, and I’m asking you to hurt me, and I’ve never, I’ve never felt like that during sex; it’s _never_ been that good. And now I’m, like, what kind of fucked-up person am I, that I go straight from hearing about what happened to Parse to asking for something like that?”

Ignoring an inappropriate urge to preen about the way Swoops says _it’s_ never _been that good_ , Mads sighs and leans back, tipping Swoops’s chin up to look at him. “Listen, I get that you’re new at this, but there’s a big fucking difference between what happened to Parse and you liking it a little rough in bed. If you want to waste time feeling guilty about something, maybe focus on the actual shitty thing you did, which was bringing his fucking rapist in the locker room, and not the fact that you like being scratched and held down.”

Swoops curls in on himself, turning away from Mads.

“No,” says Mads, tugging his chin back. “No, you can’t just ignore this because of how bad you feel.”

“That’s not it!” Swoops pulls Mads’s hand off his face, but doesn’t let go when he sets his own down on the mattress. “I already told you, I literally can’t imagine what it was like for him: not yesterday, and not when he was a kid. I objectively know it was horrible and I feel like shit for putting him in that position, but any details beyond that, trying to put a picture in my head… I don’t have a frame of reference. My brain won’t let me hang onto it.”

“Do you want me to tell you what I know, then?”   

Swoops jerks a little. Nods. “Yeah. Please.”

“He doesn’t remember the game yesterday. He blacked out completely, like he was playing concussed. Before then, he was too scared to sleep in his own bed; when I went in and found him afterwards, all his pillows and shit were in the bathtub, because it made him feel safer. He drew blood scratching at the place on his neck where that fuckstain touched him, and all last night, while we waited for Day to get here, every time he fell asleep, he had nightmares. Woke up screaming, over and over. He told me… he said, he’s had nightmares like that for as long as he’s been in the NHL. That’s why he got Kit, our rookie year; he figured out he had PTSD and wanted a therapy animal.” He quiets at that, throat tightening as he feels awful all over again for ever chirping Kent about getting a pet.

“Jesus Christ.” Swoops grips his hand, and Mads, for some stupid reason, lets him. “How the fuck do I ever apologise for something like that? How the fuck do I make it better?”

“You don’t. You can’t.” Mads squeezes him back, forcing Swoops to look at him. “That’s the thing about picket-fence niceness, Swoops: it has you thinking _sorry_ is a magic word that makes everything better, when all it does it make _you_ feel better for saying it. My –” he breaks off, wondering if he’s really going to say what he’s about to say, then figures he might as well go for broke, “– my dad, he used to hit my mom, and he’d always say sorry afterwards, too. But he never stopped hitting her, or me, or my brothers. He just didn’t like feeling bad about what he’d done.”

“Oh,” says Swoops, softly. He pulls a little closer; Mads feels his chest go tight.

“Sorry doesn’t mean shit if you don’t change, Jeff. I’ve fucked up with Parse, too, and if he trusts me at all right now, it’s because I realised I needed to be better even if he hated me. You can’t… you can’t look at this, like, _what can I do to get my friends back_ , because that’s not the point. The point is to be someone they deserve to have in their corner whether they want you there or not, and right now, they don’t.”

“I think,” Swoops says, softly. “Well, two things. One, I think that’s maybe the smartest thing I’ve ever heard anyone say, so. Thank you. And two, I think… I think I’ve spent my whole life trying so hard to be what other people want and like that I’ve never actually _been_ any of it; I’ve only ever pretended. And I want to say I don’t know why, because that would be easier, but the truth is, some part of me has always kind of known that what I thought I was, what I thought I wanted, was wrong; and because of that, I’ve gone around assuming on some level that I just… I just had to _pass_. I didn’t have to feel things if they were hard, or figure out what they meant; I just had to look like I understood. But I don’t. I don’t really understand anything except hockey, and now…”

He trails off, and Mads is suddenly hit by a wave of profound exhaustion.

“Shit’s hard,” he says. “I get it. Just try and do better, huh? And roll over, if you’re staying.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Roll over.”

Swoops complies, and Mads spoons up against his back, enjoying the warmth of another person. “We can talk more later, if you want,” he murmurs, jaw cracking on a yawn, “but I’m really fucking tired, and I’m guessing you could probably do with a nap, too.” It ought to feel daring to take it for granted that Swoops isn’t going to run out on him, but Mads ran out of fucks to give about nine hours ago. “Sleep fixes a lot of stuff, dude.”

“It won’t fix this,” Swoops mumbles, but he doesn’t make any move to leave, and that’s the last thing Mads hears from him before he falls asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for emotionally risky sex. Swoops and Mads do stuff that's arguably verging into D/s territory, and while they don't regret it afterwards, there's no informed discussion beforehand about what they like and don't like.


	11. Chapter 11

On leaving the hotel, Kent’s first order of business is to find the nearest Apple store, where a helpful woman with pink hair assures him that his phone can be fixed in the next three hours. With that taken care of, Day whisks him off to a Cajun bar that he’d heard about from a friend and which he’s evidently been dying to visit. The food is not remotely approved by Kent’s diet plan and absolutely delicious, as are the accompanying cocktails. Day holds his hand on the table and, at Kent’s urging, goes into scathing, salty detail about the assholes at his writers’ retreat, until Kent is choking with laughter. More than once, he gets hit with a strange, chilling guilt about being happy in the moment, as if he’s somehow not taking his own trauma seriously enough by failing to wallow in it – but then Day will run a thumb over his knuckles or smile just so, and the feeling passes, replaced by a quiet, fierce joy at his own resilience.

The thought comes to him just after their plates are cleared away, but before they’ve finished drinking: _nothing in my past can steal my future._ For as long as he’s been in the NHL, Kent’s been terrified that being outed would cost him his friends, his team, his job, but he and Jack are both out now, their history a matter of public record, and no amount of homophobic vitriol from bigoted fans can walk them back into the closet. But even knowing that, his bone-deep fear of _getting found out_ has persisted, because he’s still had secrets; but now the people who matter most know all of them, too, and they’re still in his corner – are even _more_ in his corner than he ever thought possible. And then there’s Day, who has never once flinched from Kent’s baggage; has only ever helped him carry it, made it lighter. Day, who gives him a life worth living.

Kent has spent so long being afraid, of living in an eternal present delineated by all the things he’d told himself he couldn’t have, that he’d never really considered his future; not in any meaningful sense. The future was a country he never wanted to visit, because the _real_ future, the one that frightened him, was always going to involve the end of professional hockey, and up until now, he’s had no positive concept of himself beyond that. Pre-NHL Kent was an orphan, a foster child, an abuse victim, the closeted secret boyfriend of a boy who nearly died, and while NHL-Kent has technically been all those things, too, he’s had an amazing career – and a team, and friends – to serve as compensation. But post-NHL Kent…

He could coach, he realises. He thinks he’d be good at it; not all great players are good coaches, but Kent’s put enough one-on-one time into Hells and his other past rookies, has done enough leading in the locker room, to feel like it’s a viable option. He’s not sure about commentating, but if there’s one thing he’s always been eloquent about, it’s hockey, and he has Day to give him pointers if he decides that’s what he wants. Hell, he wouldn’t even have to stay in Vegas – not that he doesn’t love the Aces; he’ll forever support the team that’s given him so much, but he’s always secretly wanted to live in California, and nobody in the organisation would fault him for wanting a change of scenery. And that’s just the professional stuff. Personally –

Kent looks at Day, who’s sipping the last of his mojito, elegant fingers splayed along the glass. He’s looking away from Kent, admiring the artwork on the far wall – the bar is one of those places that hangs up work for sale from local artists, and there’s a metal fish sculpture that’s caught Day’s eye. Or, well: Kent isn’t sure if the word _sculpture_ still applies to something you hang on a wall, but it’s metal and a fish and for sale, and Day’s gaze is moving appreciatively over the lines of it, understanding the talent that went into making it in a way that Kent likely never will, but which he nonetheless finds wildly attractive.

“Day?”

“Hm?” says Day, turning back to him. He smiles, setting down the glass. “Sorry, I was drifting a bit. What is it?”

“Do you want kids? I mean, one day, have you ever – would you ever want that?”

He doesn’t know where the question came from, only that it’s suddenly important. Surprise shows on Day’s face, then mellows into something warm.

“Yes,” he says, almost shyly. He glances down at their joined hands, thumb rubbing across Kent’s knuckles. “I, that is – yeah. I always… I always have. One day.”

Kent nods dumbly, heart in his throat. “I never really thought about it, before. Never thought I’d, that I could, that there’d ever be a time when it was an option. But now, I think… yeah. One day.” He laughs, abruptly nervous. “I mean, I’d probably screw it up a whole bunch – it’s not like I’ve ever had the best role models –”

“You’d be wonderful, I think,” Day says, softly. He squeezes Kent’s hand until he looks up, pulse rabbiting at the fondness in Day’s expression. “I’ve seen you with your teammates’ kids, _cariño_. You’re great with them. You’re, I don’t know… you show a different side of yourself with children. I always thought that, even before I’d met you.”

Kent blinks, surprised. “How?”

Day looks slightly flustered. “I… before we met, when I was researching you, I found videos of you training the Young Aces. I’d expected you’d try to be cool with them, you know – not in a bad way, just more in that fun uncle, big brother sense, but you weren’t like that at all. Instead, you were gentle. Genuine. Before then, I’d thought your media personality was basically who you were, because I’d never seen anything that showed you differently, but with the kids, it all fell away.”

Kent flushes all over, warm and pleased and vulnerable. “Oh.”

Day squeezes his hand again and smiles. “There was one clip of you with a little girl, I think she was about six or so, and she was so shy, she couldn’t look at you. So you got down on your hands and knees on the ice, so you were smaller than her, and told her it was okay to be shy, and that sometimes you felt like a turtle who wanted to go into his shell, too, with so many cameras around all the time – and then you took your helmet off and put it on your back, and pretended it was a shell to make her laugh, and tucked your head under your elbows. And then, when she asked you to come out again, you told her the helmet could still be like a pretend shell if it was on her head, and that sometimes thinking about it like that made you feel brave when you were scared. And after that, she wasn’t shy anymore.”

Kent is red all over; his skin feels like it’s buzzing. “I, ah. I’d forgotten about that. Kailee is so outgoing now, it’s like she’s never been anything else.”

“See?” says Day. “You forgot, but you still remember her name.”

“Of course I remember her name,” says Kent, bridling just a little at the suggestion that he’d ever do otherwise. “She’s one of my – oh.” He falters, cheeks burning all over again. He swallows. “One of my kids.”

Day kisses his knuckles in answer. Kent gulps the rest of his own drink a little too quickly, for all that he can’t stop smiling. _It’s not – it’s not like we just agreed to have kids or anything_ , he tells himself. _We just know we’re on the same page with them. That’s all_.             

With their meal done and a little over two hours pleasantly elapsed, Kent sends Day outside to find them an Uber while he takes care of the bill. He’s just signing for it all when the fish on the wall catches his eye.

“Can I buy that?” he asks the hostess, cocking a thumb at it. “I mean, I know I can, but – I’d, I’d like to buy it, please.”

She grins enthusiastically. “Oh, sure! D’you want me to wrap it up for you?”

“Just a bag would be fine, if you have one.”

The fish, when removed from its hook, is surprisingly heavy. It’s made of several different metals, all in different colours, and comes with a little card detailing the artist’s name, the materials used and a blurb about the piece. It’s several hundred dollars, which is nothing to Kent’s NHL salary, and he leaves the bar feeling somehow lighter, for all that he’s now carrying an ornamental fish.

“Car should be here in a minute,” says Day. He spots the bag and grins. “Did you buy dessert after all?”

“Not quite,” says Kent. “This is for you.”

He hands the bag over, immensely pleased with the look of startled happiness that crosses Day’s face when he pulls out the fish. Day looks at him, wide-eyed.

“You bought this for me?”

“You were admiring it,” says Kent. He smiles at Day’s continued astonishment, leaning up to kiss his cheek. “Now it’s yours.”

Day’s response is forestalled by the arrival of their Uber, which forces Day to juggle the fish as his phone pings. They greet the driver, then climb into the back seat, Day cradling the fish in his lap. As they set off, Kent tells him about the little card that came with it; Day immediately pulls it out and reads it, then tucks it carefully into his wallet for safekeeping. He spends the rest of the ride to the Apple store alternately admiring the fish and shooting Kent the sort of soft, adoring looks that make him fervently wish they were somewhere private.

Rather than call a new ride or try to find a parking space outside the store, Day stays in the Uber as it circles the block while Kent goes in to get his phone. It is, somewhat miraculously, ready exactly when the assistant said it would be, and after only a brief wait at the counter, Kent is able to head back outside, call Day in the Uber to pronounce himself re-phoned, and then jump back in for the final trip to the hotel.

“Thank you for this,” Day says, when Kent catches him studying the fish again. “I should’ve said it before, but… anyway, thank you. I really like it.”

“I’m glad,” says Kent, and reaches across the empty seat to twine their fingers together.

By the time they pull up outside the hotel, Kent is more relaxed than he’s been since the start of the roadie. He feels… centred, somehow. Like he’s made peace with himself; or with part of himself, at least. Which is why, when he spots a kid in an Aces jersey standing outside the hotel beside his tired-looking dad, he finds himself smiling rather than groaning internally at the presence of lurking fans. He catches Day’s eye and nods in their direction; Day rolls his eyes fondly and make as much of a _go on_ gesture as possible, given his armful of statue.

Kent sees the exact moment when the kid recognises him: he’s maybe ten years old, sandy-haired and bright eyed, and he lights up in a way you’d have to be heartless not to find endearing.

“Hey there,” Kent says, walking over to them. The dad, who’s clearly been zoning out, does a double-take at his approach, an expression of pleasant surprise transforming his face from exhausted to genial. “Would you like me to sign something for you?”

“Yes, please! Oh my god,” the boy says, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “See, dad! I _knew_ he’d be here!”     

“Guess you were right, bud,” the dad replies.

There’s a moment of semi-awkward flurrying as the kid fumbles in his backpack for a brand new Aces hat and a Sharpie – Kent dutifully signs one with the other – as well as a rolled-up poster of Kent with the Stanley Cup.

“Do you play?” Kent asks, lips twitching a little at the poster. It’s not his favourite shot of himself, if he’s honest, but he’s hardly about to say so here.

“I do!” the kid says, and launches into an enthusiastic spiel about his Atom team and how much he loves playing as a forward, especially now that they’ve got a new coach who’s moved him from wing to centre.

“That sounds great!” says Kent, when the boy finally stops to draw breath. “What’s your name, so I can sign this to you properly?”

The kid beams. “I’m Noah, but my teammates call me Sparks, ‘coz my last name’s Sparkman.”

“Well, I’d better sign it to Sparks, then,” says Kent, and leans the poster against the hotel wall, writing a quick, encouraging message, then signing it with a flourish. Noah is practically vibrating with happiness, but when he rolls the poster up again, his hands are steady, careful not to crease it.

“Thank you for taking the time,” says the elder Sparkman, smiling at his son. “It really means a lot to him.”

“It’s no trouble,” says Kent. “Honestly, it’s nice to find Aces fans in New York.”

Mr Sparkman laughs. “He’s a recent convert,” he says – and then, in an oddly self-conscious gesture, he taps a pin stuck to his shirt collar. Kent hadn’t noticed it before, but when Mr Sparkman’s finger falls, he sees it’s a rainbow flag. In a voice too low for his son’s ears, Mr Sparkman murmurs, “I don’t know if he’s – you know, but he was so excited when you came out, I thought, well. Support is important, right?”

Kent feels himself choke up a little. “Yeah. It really is.”

As Noah finishes rolling his poster and putting it safely back in his bag, Mr Sparkman ruffles his son’s hair and says, in a normal voice, “Thanks again. I wouldn’t normally have thought to just show up like this on the offchance, but Gary said you wouldn’t mind.”

The bottom drops out of Kent’s stomach.

“ _Gary?_ ” he blurts, unable to keep the shock from his voice. “You _know_ him?”

“We work together,” says Mr Sparkman. He looks a little confused by Kent’s tone, to say nothing of what his face must be doing. “I know he was looking forward to seeing you again; he wouldn’t shut up about it. He said he used to coach you a bit, and we all figured that was just big talk, but we got a kick out of it anyway.”

Kent is still trying to process this when Noah, in his piping child’s voice, chimes in excitedly with, “He offered to coach me, too!”

Kent freezes.

Oblivious, Mr Sparkman frowns at his son. “He did? When was this?”

“When he picked you up last week, and you had to go get your stuff from the garage.” He bites his lip, looking somewhat guilty, then adds, “He said it should be a secret, ‘coz he doesn’t teach many boys and that makes it special, but he taught Kent, so I figured that makes it okay to tell _him_.”

Kent is shaking. He can’t breathe. He’s going to be sick, except he _can’t_ be sick because you can’t talk when you’re vomiting and he needs, more than he’s ever needed anything in his life, to be able to speak right now. Mr Sparkman glances at him, then breaks off from whatever he’d been about to say when he registers Kent’s expression.

“Are you all right?”    

Kent shakes his head. “Please,” he croaks, and reaches out to put a hand on Mr Sparkman’s shoulder, gripping urgently. “Please, god, don’t – whatever you do, _don’t_ leave them alone together. Not _ever_.” He’s dimly aware of Day standing beside him, close enough to touch. He draws strength from it, forcing himself to meet Mr Sparkman’s gaze as he pulls his hand away.

Confused, Noah asks, “How come? Is he a bad coach?”

Kent can’t look at the boy; he keeps his eyes on his father, willing him to read between the lines. “Very bad,” he says, and it comes out a rasp. “The worst. He teaches things that no one should ever learn.”

Mr Sparkman sucks in air: a sharp, short inhale. Colour drains from his face. _He gets it._ He stares at Kent, hard and desperate, and says, in a voice that’s too tight to pass as casual, “And that’s… that’s been your _personal_ experience?”

Kent tries to swallow. Fails. “Yes,” he whispers. “First-hand.” A manic part of him wants to laugh at the terrible, awful pun; he leans against Day and tamps it down. And then, because he doesn’t know how the fuck he’ll be able to cope if the opposite happens, “Please. _Please_ , believe me.”

Almost imperceptibly, Mr Sparkman nods, though his gaze never wavers. “Of course,” he says, hoarsely. “Of course. I – that’s not the sort of thing I’d want to get wrong. Thank you for the w- the recommendation.”

Kent’s knees want to buckle. He doesn’t let them. “My pleasure,” he says. “Please – if you ever… if you need – if you ever wanted to let me know how Noah’s doing, with his team, I’d love – I’d want to hear about it. I’ll give your name to our PR person; put you on the accepted calls list.”

Mr Sparkman looks overwhelmed. “I would appreciate that,” he says. “It’s. I’m. Michael. Michael Sparkman. I’ll leave them my number, too.”

“Please, do.”

Noah tugs on his arm, eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Daddy? Why’s your voice all weird?”

Michael Sparkman forces a laugh. “I must be getting a sore throat! That’s what happens, when you spend all day standing out in the cold.”

“We should go get hot chocolate, then,” says Noah. And then, sternly pleading, “You did _say_ we could get hot chocolate.”

“Yeah. Yes. I did. I did say that.” He laughs, albeit shakily, and clasps Kent’s hand in both of his. “It’s been… I can’t thank you enough.”

“I’m just glad I could help,” Kent says. And then, with a singular effort of will, he reaches down to shake Noah’s hand, too. He doesn’t say anything as he does it – doesn’t know what he _could_ say, right now – but Noah shakes back, eyes wide with hero-worship.

His hand is tiny.

Michael and Noah Sparkman leave, though both of them spare a backward glance for Kent. He stands there, immobile, until they’re gone from view, then staggers so hard he nearly falls. Day makes soothing noises, one arm looped around Kent’s waist. Kent leans on him unabashedly, and Day gets them both inside, supporting Kent all the way through the lobby, into the lift and out onto his floor, somehow managing to drop neither Kent nor the fish statue as he wrangles his keycard out of his wallet.

The second they’re back in his room, Kent lurches over to the bed and drops down beside it, arms and face pressed to the mattress. He’s shaking uncontrollably, breathing hard and fast. Day kneels beside him, soothing a palm up and down Kent’s back. Kent squeezes his eyes shut, tears leaking out the edges. A ball of guilt and rage is lodged in his stomach, threatening to rise up and choke him. Then –

“I’m so proud of you,” Day whispers. “Sweetheart, you just saved that boy. You spoke up, and you _saved_ him.”

Kent digs his fingers into the mattress. “How many others –”

“No.” The word is spoken firmly. Day changes position, pressing his chest against Kent’s back, arms wrapped around his stomach. “You weren’t the first one he abused. Do you blame the ones who came before you for what he did later?”

Kent flinches at the very notion. “God, no. But –”

“But _nothing_. What he did to you was not their fault, which means that what he may have done to others is not your fault, either. The only fault is his, and his alone.”

Kent shudders with the effort of not sobbing. “Do you really think he believed me?”

“I do. He did.” Day hugs him tight; Kent sits up from the mattress, half-turning to hug Day back. They shift to put both their backs to the mattress, Kent half sprawled in Day’s lap. Day kisses his forehead, holding him close. “You saved his boy, _cariño._ You saved his son. I saw it in his face, just as you did. No father could lie about something like that.”

“I just wish –” Kent starts, then stops again, voice hiccupping in his throat. He clings to Day, cheeks wet, and tries again. “I don’t blame anyone else he hurt. I just… I just wish someone had saved me, too, you know?”

“I know, love,” Day whispers. “I wish that, too.”

Kent shuts his eyes, and lets himself be held.


	12. Chapter 12

Day holds Kent in silence, settled against the bed. Now that he has the space to think, he’s having his own emotional reaction to their encounter with the Sparkmans, and he’s not sure how to process it without making Kent feel worse. What just happened might so easily _not_ have happened, if any one of a dozen tiny things had gone differently, and then Noah would’ve been vulnerable to the same abuse as Kent. If they’d lingered a little longer at brunch; if Kent had been held up at the Apple store; if their Uber had taken a different route; if the Sparkmans had given up and gone home without ever seeing them; if the conversation had followed a different path; if Noah hadn’t spoken up; if Michael hadn’t listened. So many little _ifs_ , and even with all those conditions fulfilled, Day is still rattled by how near-miss it feels, as though they were all nearly hit by a truck and didn’t know the danger until it swerved.

Kent stirs against his chest, lifting his head to look up at him. His eyes are dry now, albeit still a little red-rimmed, and he frowns at whatever he sees in Day’s expression.

“You’re trembling,” Kent says. He shifts again, putting a hand to Day’s cheek. “Are you all right?”

Day’s throat knots up. “You shouldn’t have to ask me that.”

“Says who?” He straddles Day’s lap, hands cupping his face as his thumbs smooth over his cheeks. “You’re allowed to be upset, Day. After all that, anyone would be.” He shuts his eyes, shuddering briefly. “If we’d come late and missed them –”

“I know.” Day reaches up to squeeze Kent’s wrists, pressing their foreheads together. He exhales raggedly, letting the tension bleed from him at the contact. “I keep thinking that, too.”

They sit like that for a moment, breathing in sync. When Kent finally lowers his hands, Day copies him, lacing their fingers together.

“Do you think –” Kent starts, then breaks off, biting his lip. He hesitates, then says, in a smaller voice, “Do you think Sparkman might arrest him?”

“I don’t know, _cariño_.” Day kisses his forehead, his cheek. “I want to say yes, but he’d need evidence to act, and the statute means you can’t bring charges yourself. But I think he’ll try and do _something_ , if only to keep his boy safe.”

“And it’s not like you can trust cops to inform on other cops,” Kent says, bitterly. “Even if Sparkman’s a good guy, there’s way too many who’ll turn a blind eye or help cover it up, no matter what he tells them.”

They share a moment of frustrated silence. Day feels himself start to sour on humanity: as upbeat as he tries to be, there’s only so much systematic evil he can acknowledge head-on without wanting to lash out at everyone who lets the world be as it is, regardless of their level of culpability. But then Kent laughs – a soft, self-deprecating huff – and kisses him on the corner of the mouth.

“Sorry,” he murmurs. “Neither of us needs another thing to feel sad about right now.”

And just like that, the sourness washes away, replaced by something warm and tender. Unable to help himself, Day captures Kent’s mouth in a proper kiss, thrilling all over as Kent kisses back. He groans in his throat when Kent rocks down on him a little, though neither of them move to take things further. When they finally pull apart, Kent’s lips are gratifyingly swollen.

“Not that I’m complaining,” he says, flushed and smiling, “but what was that for?”

“For being you,” says Day. He grins in turn. “And because I wanted to.”

He’s on the brink of saying more when his phone starts buzzing in his jacket pocket. With a quick glance at Kent, who sits back on his heels and motions for Day to answer, he pulls it out and makes a face when he sees the caller ID.

“Zora,” he says.

Kent makes a face of his own. “God, don’t keep her waiting!”

“Perish the thought,” says Day, and picks up the call. “Hello?”

“Your boy Swoops,” says Zora, without preamble, “is dead to me until such time as I declare him worthy of redemption. Which will be _after_ he suffers my wrath.”

Day winces in sympathy. Evidently, Javvy has already exercised his right to keep Racker in the loop. “You spoke to R- Asher, then?” he asks, stumbling over the still-unfamiliar first name. With most of the Aces, he has no trouble using their real names where appropriate, but for whatever reason, it’s difficult to think of Racker as anything other than, well, _Racker_.

“I have,” says Zora, in the idle tones of a supervillain choosing which button to push. “You can warn Swoops to expect some comeuppance, in the interest of fair play. And _yes_ ,” she says, as Day opens his mouth to speak, “I’m aware that he’s a professional athlete with a public profile and that some lines can’t be crossed in bringing him to justice. All caveats are noted. Nonetheless: you have been _warned_.”

“You’re genuinely terrifying, you know that?”

“You say the sweetest things,” says Zora. And then, in softer tones, “Give Kent a hug from me, will you? I know it’s not a small thing, him letting me hear about all this so Ash doesn’t have to keep secrets; we both appreciate it. And not that it ought to need saying, but the pair of you have my sword in any case.”

“I will,” says Day. “Thanks, Zora.”

“Good.” She makes an irritable noise. “I’d talk more, but I’ve got work to do. Text me if there’s any salient updates, won’t you? Ash is still on limited screen-time, so it’s harder to route things through him.”     

“Of course. Love you.”

“Love you, too,” she says, and hangs up.

“So,” says Kent, as Day lowers the phone. “I’m guessing Swoops is a dead man?”

“You could say that, yes.”

“Your sister is a tiny avenging fury. I feel like there’s a shrine to her somewhere, lending her divine smiting powers.”

“Honestly, it would explain a lot.” Day pauses, thumbing through to his texts as he spies an unopened message. He reads it, blinking in surprise, then lets out a startled breath.

“What?” says Kent. “What is it?”

“A text from Liam – I must’ve missed it earlier. He says Swoops called Lucy to make sure none of the photos taken yesterday end up online, and she told him that nothing either has or will be posted.”

A look of simultaneous terror and relief flashes across Kent’s face. “Oh, thank _fuck_ ,” he says, shakily. “Jesus, I’d – I’d pretty much made myself forget about that. Tell him thanks, will you?”

“Already on it,” says Day, thumbs tapping out a reply. He waits for the message to send, checks there’s nothing else important to look at on his phone – there isn’t – then turns his attention back to Kent, whose expression has turned introspective.

“What is it?” he asks.

Kent shakes his head, troubled. “Nothing. Just… I was just thinking that if Swoops hadn’t fucked up the way he did and I hadn’t had to tell everyone what happened to me, I’m not sure I would’ve been brave enough to say something after, when –” he swallows, “– when Noah did.”

Sympathy pangs in Day’s stomach. “Sweetheart, you can’t know that.”

“Maybe not,” says Kent. “But it still _feels_ true, or like it could’ve been. And I know, I _know_ that’s not helpful, I know there’s no way I can know for sure, but it’s still another _if_ , you know? What if I hadn’t said anything?” He runs a hand through his hair, looking beseechingly at Day. “The thought of him touching another kid… Jesus, I can’t, I can’t even _think_ about that without wanting to throw up again, but I’ve been – I’ve been so fucking _afraid_ for so long, I hate that I can’t be sure that I would’ve said anything if I hadn’t already done it, you know? Like, I just – I think – I think I would’ve at least _tried_ , because I’m not, I’m not sure I could’ve lived with myself if I hadn’t, but it would’ve, god –” he gulps, voice getting shaky again, “– it would’ve _hurt_ , it would’ve been so messy, and in front of a _kid_ – you saw how it was when I told the guys; the whole time, I felt like I was falling apart, and that was with people I _know_ , in a closed room.”

Day gathers him in again, stroking his back until his breathing settles. “Telling Swoops and the others, that wasn’t the first time you did it,” he murmurs. “You told Mads first, remember?”

“Yeah,” Kent says, “but I only did _that_ because of Swoops, too. Fuck, the only reason _you’re_ here right now is because of what Swoops did, and without that…”

He tails off abruptly, breath hot on Day’s throat.  And then, quietly, fervently, he whispers, “Oh, _fuck_.”

Day’s pulse ticks up. “Kent? What is it?”

Kent makes a noise that doesn’t quite pass as laughter. He lifts his head, an unreadable look on his face. “The only reason the Sparkmans came to see me here is because Swoops invited Gary to the game, and Gary bragged about knowing me to Michael; even told him I’d be okay with an unsolicited drop-in. We’re sitting here wondering _what if_ about all this other random shit, but that’s the real variable. If Swoops never fucked up in the first place, then I never would’ve met Noah today, and you _heard_ him, Day – he only said what he did because _I was there_ , and he thought that made it okay to tell the secret.”    

“Oh,” says Day, dumbstruck. “Oh, shit.”

“That about sums it up, yeah.” Kent tips his head back and stares at the ceiling. “I’m still mad at Swoops for being an oblivious ass, but this… I’ve never believed in, in god or anything like that, but luck – good luck, bad luck, whatever – that’s just hockey, you know? Everything is luck, sooner or later. And if me having all this crap dropped on me at a point in my life when I can actually kind of handle it – if the upshot of all this is that one little kid gets spared what I went through – then I’ll take it. I’ll take it in a heartbeat, fuck.” He looks at Day and exhales, a huff of incredulous laughter. “Good luck. Jesus, this is all… it’s been so fucking awful, but the net result is actually good luck. I get friends who support me even more than they already did, I get you here, I find out I’ve got another queer teammate, and I get to help save a kid. So, yeah. If that’s a trade, I’ll take it. And Swoops… god, I don’t think I have the heart to stay mad at him; not when Zora’s gonna go nuclear on his ass. She’s way more terrifying than I could ever be.”

Day stares at him. “You’re letting him off the hook?”

“I wouldn’t say that, exactly.” Kent chews his lip, thoughtful, then sighs. “Just. I was furious at him before. A part of me still is. But he’s _Swoops_ , you know? He’s a hot fucking mess, but he always tries. And I don’t… honestly, I don’t think I have the energy to stay angry at someone I care about; and even if I did, what’s the point? If he’s really the guy I’ve always thought he is, he’ll try to do better, and if he’s not, my staying mad won’t change anything. He fucked up, and it fucked _me_ up, but it helped someone else in the long run, and life is too goddamn short, Day. The Aces are my family. _He’s_ my family. He’s an idiot, sure, but he’s _my_ idiot. I’m not going to throw him away.”

Day is rarely lost for words, but he sure as hell is now. Kent has spent the better part of two days reliving the worst sort of trauma for an audience of friends and strangers alike, but is now, in this moment, willing to wave the experience off as a price well paid for saving a child from abuse. Kent has always been better at caring more for others than himself, and seeing that compassion turned to healthier ends than constant abnegation over the past few months has been amazing; something Day feels privileged to have witnessed, let alone be a part of. But even so, the fact that Kent is happy to try and move on from this – to look at the fucking _positives_ , when a day ago he was nearly catatonic – makes Day’s heart ache in his chest.

“You’re too good for them,” he croaks out at last. He pulls Kent close and kisses him, fingers threading through his hair. “You’re too good for all of them.”

Kent laughs, twining his arms around Day’s neck. “As long as I’m good enough for you, I’ll live.”

Day thinks of Kent speaking to him in Spanish, and of the fish statue sitting opposite; of the thousand tiny ways in which, at a time when Kent has been suffering, he has still shown Day, over and over, that he’s noticed, valued, wanted, cherished.

Loved.

“Always,” Day whispers, and kisses him again.


	13. Chapter 13

Mads wakes slowly, sensing he’s alone in bed and muzzily confused about why. He shifts a little, hand patting the span of mattress where another body might fit, and encounters nothing but cool, rucked sheets. _Swoops_ , he thinks, and only then do the morning’s events come back to him, a sensate flood of memory that yanks him into consciousness more effectively than any alarm.

“Fuck,” he whispers, a little in awe of himself. It’s not like he didn’t already know he was into dudes, but there’s a difference between jerking off to a fantasy and actually, like, _doing_ the fantasy, and as dumb as it is, a part of him feels weirdly relieved to know that it’s not all in his head. So where the hell has Swoops gone?

“Fuck,” he mutters again, and is in the process of trying to remember where his pants are when he hears a noise from the bathroom. The door is cracked open a little; Mads doesn’t remember if it was like that when they fell asleep, but he does know that the light was off, and now it’s on, which together suggests that Swoops is still with him.

Swinging his legs out of bed, Mads snags his briefs from the bedside chair, pulls them on and saunters over to the bathroom, nudging the door inwards with a fingertip. Sure enough, there’s Swoops – also in just his boxers – sitting upright in the bath, his phone in his hand and his arms braced over his knees. There’s a non-trivial amount of stubble burn on his neck and chest, along with a couple of hickeys and scratch-marks, and a quick glance in the mirror proves that Mads isn’t much better off. He winces: Kent’s bound to put two and two together, and even if he doesn’t say anything, it’s not like he needs something else to worry about right now. Still, it’s not like he can undo it, so why waste time worrying?   

“You okay?” Mads asks, leaning his shoulder against the wall.

“Yeah,” says Swoops. He half-lifts his phone in muted gesticulation. “Just had to make a couple of calls. Sorry if I woke you.”

“You didn’t,” says Mads. “What time is it, anyway?”

“Nearly four.” Swoops hugs his knees a little, then comes to his feet without ever looking up. “I can head out, if you want.”

“There’s no rush,” says Mads, carefully. He’s getting a weird vibe off of Swoops – not _regret_ , exactly, but something uncharacteristically subdued. He waits as Swoops climbs out of the bath, but when he heads for the door without answering, Mads straightens and steps in front of him. “Hey. Jeff. What are you doing?”

“I don’t know.” Swoops looks at him, lips twisted with bitter humour. “I figured you’d be pissed if I slunk out while you were still asleep, but I didn’t think you’d want me to stick around, either.”

Mads blinks at him. “Why not?”

Swoops raises a pointed eyebrow. “Because you hate me? A fact you mentioned several times while we were fucking?”

Mads has the grace to blush, though he stubbornly doesn’t look away. “I don’t _hate you_ , hate you. You just piss me off a lot.”

“Gee, thanks. That makes such a difference.”

“Okay, that’s fair. But let’s not pretend you’re my biggest fan, either.”

“Also fair,” says Swoops. “So, this was what – experimental hatesex?”

“If you like.”

“Sure. Whatever. And now it’s done, so.” He flaps a hand at the door. “Am I free to leave, or do I have to answers your riddles three?”

Mads snorts and moves. “Be my guest,” he says. “Just didn’t want you assuming that I’d kick you out first thing.”

“Chivalry at its finest,” Swoops mutters, brushing haughtily past him. Mads rolls his eyes and turns in the doorway, watching as Swoops surveys the room in search of his scattered clothing.

“Is this going to be a thing?” Mads asks, after a moment.

Swoops, caught in the act of bending down to retrieve his shirt, pauses. Mads ogles his ass because it’s nice and right there, and is only a little disappointed when Swoops, shirt now in hand, straightens to face him.

“No,” he says, that strange tone back in his voice again. “Why? Do you want it to be?”

“Depends what you mean by _thing_ ,” Mads says. Moving slowly, he comes to stand before Swoops, arms folded, and does not miss the bob of his teammate’s throat. “If you mean, do I want it to make stuff weird with us, then no. But if you mean, do I want it to happen again, then yeah. I’d be up for a thing, if you want.”

“If _I_ want,” Swoops echoes. He looks Mads over, licking his lips. “Uh. No offence, but… why? You don’t even like me.”

“I like parts of you,” Mads says, with a hint of smirk. Swoops makes a face, but he flushes a little, too. Mads grins. “Seriously, though. Why not? We had fun. We’re both new to guys, we’re not out. Well,” he amends, for the sake of honesty, “I’m out to Parse and Day, but that’s it. We can figure this sex stuff out as we go, no pressure. Just a fuckbuddies deal.”

“You’re serious.” Swoops runs a hand through his already tousled hair, then says, almost cautiously, “You, uh… you have looked in the mirror lately, right? I mean, you really don’t have to settle for me just because I’m convenient.”

Mads frowns. “We’re both NHL players. Pretty sure neither one of us will have trouble wheeling dudes.”

“Which is my point,” says Swoops. He looks frustrated now, fidgeting with his shirt and phone. “Look, I’m not… I’m not _averse_ to this being a _thing_. I just want a better reason than it being convenient.”

“Good sex isn’t enough?” Mads asks. He’s not trying to be petty, but Swoops’s eyes flash in challenge.

“You think you’re the only guy who can get me off? I said you were good, but that doesn’t make you special.”

Almost, Mads bridles at that, which is probably what Swoops wants. But then he remembers his talk with Kent, how afraid he’d been of Mads blundering into the dangers and pitfalls of gay sex without knowing how to keep himself safe, and realises with an unpleasant jolt that, while he’s probably not an obvious target for assholes, Swoops is a different story. Not that they actually talked it through, but Mads will eat a rock if Swoops isn’t subby as hell with zero experience of admitting it, if the way he responded to a little offhand dominance is anything to go by, and that’s a good way to get yourself messed up if you’re not being picky about your partners. Shit, Mads only knows about that stuff thanks to Kayla, the girl who, among other things, liked her thighs scratched up: she gave him a primer and made damn sure he agreed to the ground rules before she let him go to town on her, and even at a point in his life where he was still in denial about a lot of things, Mads understood that she was still taking a risk by trusting him with it.

“Yeah, I’m not special,” Mads says, to Swoops’s clear surprise. “There’s tons of dudes out there who’d do you good, who are better at this than me. But what we did before, that wasn’t just straight vanilla stuff, and I might be new to guys, but I’m not new to kink. Not totally, anyway; but I’m guessing you are. Right?”

Swoops swallows hard and doesn’t answer, which is also answer enough.  

“Yeah,” says Mads, not unkindly. “I figured. So, yeah. Maybe I think you’re a jerk sometimes, but that doesn’t mean I like the idea of you getting in over your head with strangers who know shit about aftercare. Plus, you’re hot as fuck when you come, and I won’t lie, I’m kinda into exploring the dominance thing if that’s the end result.”

“Jesus Christ,” says Swoops. He’s flushing all over, and – oh. Definitely hard, too, now that Mads thinks to look down and check. Not that he isn’t nursing a semi himself, but it’s still pretty gratifying. “Are you always like this in bed?”

“Like what?”

“Like – all fucking calm and deep-voiced and _considerate_ , Jesus.” He licks his lips again, shirt falling from his hands; there’s a muffled thump as his phone drops, too. “How is it that you’re an asshole about everything but this?”

“Practice,” Mads says, simply. He puts a hand on Swoops’s hip, thumb stroking speculatively against the cut of his muscles. “So. Is that a yes?”

Swoops makes a noise. “Okay. Okay, yeah, whatever, fuck, just fucking g–”

Mads kisses him, thrilling at the way Swoops groans. He moves his other hand to the back of Swoops’s head, pinning him still as Mads holds him flush, claiming his mouth. By the time he pulls away again, Swoops is whimpering.

“We’ll need to talk through stuff at some point,” Mads says, breathing heavily; he’s hardly unaffected by all this, either. “But right now, I figure we start with what feels good and go from there. That work for you?”

“Sure,” Swoops says, and Mads pulls him in again, hands roaming as they back up onto the bed.

This time, Mads doesn’t feel like rushing. He lays Swoops down on the mattress, brackets him with his arms and takes him apart, deep kisses and grinding hips, using his weight and size to keep Swoops pinned in place. Swoops clings on to him, making desperate noises in the back of his throat. It’s one hell of a turn on, as is Swoops himself. Mads leans up to admire him, all splayed out and needy. Ordinarily, Swoops is a mix of eloquent sarcasm and self-deprecating snark, his sharp tongue and good looks balanced out by terrible fashion sense, embarrassing drunken escapades and a chirpable lack of life-skills. Here, though, he’s all big brown eyes and wet red mouth and soft mussed hair, his pale skin marked all over with Mads’s presence.

“If I suck you off,” Mads murmurs, nosing along Swoops’s jaw, “can you be good and keep your hands still, like I was holding them for you?”

Swoops makes a wrenching noise. “ _Please._ ”

“Does that mean yes or no?”

“ _Yes._ ”

“Good. That’s good.” Sitting up, Mads puts his hands on Swoops’s wrists and drags them slowly out and up, as if he were showing him how to make a snow angel. He brings them together over Swoops’s head and presses down, hard, to emphasise their placement.

“Keep them here,” he says. “I know you can do it.”

Swoops just pants, head tipping back as Mads works his way down his body. His nipples are absurdly sensitive: even the mildest contact has him writhing, which makes Mads wonder how the fuck Swoops manages with his hockey gear rubbing up against them during a game. He files the question away for later and keeps moving, scraping his teeth over Swoops’s ribs and making sure to rake his hips with his fingernails when he pulls his boxers off. Swoops makes noise through it all, but though his fingers twitch and grasp, he never lifts his hands.

“Doing so good for me,” Mads murmurs, fitting himself between Swoops’s thighs. He scrapes his nails there, too, just like he did for Kayla, and Swoops has a pretty similar reaction, moaning as he spreads his legs. Mads is already hard and has been for a while, but if he wasn’t, that sight alone would be enough to get him there. Swoops is cut, which he already knew from the locker room, but now considers a pity – the poor guy probably needs a fucktonne of lube to jack off without chafing. Even so, the head of his dick is red and fat, appealingly wet with precome. Mads shivers a little with anticipation: he hasn’t done this before, but he knows what good head feels like, and there’s something fucking hot about the idea of getting Swoops off this way.

Lying on his stomach, he fits his shoulders under Swoops’s thighs and sucks the head of his dick into his mouth, looking up along the length of his body as he does so.

“Jesus _fuck_ ,” Swoops gasps, hands still stretched obediently overhead. Mads moves his tongue in an experimental orbit, sliding his mouth forwards and back, gauging the fit of things. He’s never really thought much about the size of his mouth before this, but apparently it’s big enough to make him feel pretty confident about blowing a guy, because even though Swoops isn’t small, Mads can take a lot of him without choking or hurting his jaw. Shit, it’s probably easier for a lot of guys to do this than it is for girls, just based on physical scaling. Mads hollows his cheeks and sucks, swiping his tongue across Swoops’s slit to see how he tastes. It’s tangy and sweetsharp in a way that gets him hot, just like going down on a chick does, and he grinds his own dick against the mattress as he licks and sucks, hands curled around Swoops’s legs.

“Liam,” Swoops says, choked. “Liam, fuck, if you keep – I’m gonna come, I –”

Mads pulls off, loving the way Swoops groans in frustration. He grins up at him, rubbing his stubbled cheek against Swoops’s dick, just to see how he twitches and moans at the contact.

“What do you want, sweetheart? Wanna come in my mouth?”

At the word _sweetheart_ , Swoops shudders all over, eyes blowing wide as he stares at Mads. It’s not the reaction Mads was expecting – he figured Swoops would probably get bratty about it, call him an asshole, give him a pretext to draw things out – but goddamn, he’s willing to work with it.

“You like that, huh?” He grins to show there’s no mockery in it, rubbing his stubble hard across the scratches on Swoops’s thigh. “ _Sweetheart_. You like that? Like being called pretty names?”

 _Pretty_ elicits a similar reaction to _sweetheart_. Swoops’s dick twitches on his stomach; his hips buck up against Mads’s hold.

“You’re so fucking pretty like this,” Mads says, and Swoops damn near sobs. “You want my mouth again, gorgeous? Want me to finish you like that?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Swoops hiccups. Mads doesn’t need to be told twice: he licks his lips and leans back in, sucking hard as he shoves up a bit with his shoulders. Swoops spasms against him and comes in under a minute, a pulse of viscous, salty warmth that’s startling only in its unfamiliarity. Mads swallows, finds he doesn’t mind the sensation at all, and keeps his mouth firmly where it is until Swoops starts to beg at the overstimulation.

He pulls off again and kneels up, achingly hard in his briefs. He looks down at Swoops, whose arms are still in place, and bends to kiss him, moving one hand to anchor his wrists in place. He squeezes gently, reaching down with his other hand to pull his cock free of its confines. As revved up as he is, he comes all over Swoops’s chest in a matter of moments, shuddering through the aftershocks. He sucks Swoops’s bottom lip into his mouth, bites gently on the swell of it, then sits on his heels and takes his hand away.

“You did good,” Mads murmurs. Swoops’s eyes are glazed, barely tracking him. “You did good, so you can move your hands now. Can you move them for me, huh?”

“Nngh,” says Swoops. It takes him a second, but slowly, achingly, he drags his hands down the same way that Mads moved them up in the first place, until they’re by his sides. He looks debauched, completely out of it. Mads is impressed with the both of them, to be honest.

“Good job,” he says, and Swoops shivers a little, expression still blissed out. “I’m just gonna get a cloth, okay? I’ll get a cloth and come tidy you up. Nod if you understand me.”

After a beat, Swoops nods. Mads makes it a quick trip to the bathroom, wetting a hand towel in warm water and coming straight back. He wipes Swoops’s stomach with gentle strokes, then uses the clean end of the towel to soothe over the bruises on his wrists, the scratches on his chest, hips, thighs. He murmurs occasionally as he does it, little fragments like _you did good_ and _looked so hot_ , because Swoops pretty clearly likes being praised, then nudges him onto his side and spoons him, drowsing against the warmth of his back.

It takes a couple of minutes, but eventually Swoops comes back to himself. He shifts a little, rolling over to face Mads. He’s still wide-eyed, but lucidly so this time. Mads grins at him, trying and probably failing not to look smug.

“So?” he asks, teasing. “Is this going to be a thing?”

“You absolute fucker,” Swoops mutters, burrowing forward to rest his head on Mads’s chest. “Yeah, it’s a thing. _Fuck._ ”  

 _You can say that again_ , Mads thinks, and starts making plans for next time.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for a one-line reference to suicide.

Thanks to Day, Kent spends the rest of the afternoon in a state of hopeful contentment. Aside from two phonecalls – one to Lucy, to thank her for not posting the photos; the other to PR, to update them about Michael Sparkman – he grants himself amnesty from Aces-related duties and spends time with Day, savouring the novelty of having him on the road. Which, now that the crisis has passed, presents a new problem: after they play the Isles tomorrow, the team is due to fly on to Providence for a game against the Falconers before they head back to Vegas, and as Day can’t exactly travel on the team charter plane, they need to make other arrangements.

“What? You should come to Providence,” Kent says, when Day starts making noises about booking a flight home. “You – you should meet Jack and Bitty properly, when you’re not all busy being a professional interviewer. I bet they’d love to see you.”

Day ducks his head, looking a little flustered. “Are you sure? I don’t want to impose –”

“You’re the furthest thing in the world from an imposition,” Kent says firmly. “Besides, I’d… I’d really love to have you there. Not that I’m not feeling a thousand percent better right now than yesterday, but… well. I’ll be happy to be home, let’s put it that way.” He hesitates, suddenly uncertain. “But you don’t have to, I mean – if you’d rather head back, get some writing done –”

Day leans over and kisses his cheek. “I’d love to come. Thank you.”

They wrangle a little more over plane tickets – Day wants to pay for himself, and Kent isn’t having it – and after a brief negotiation, Day concedes to let the trip stand as a mini-vacation and therefore Kent’s treat. Smug in victory, Kent books him another first class seat for both the Providence flight and the return to Vegas, then sets his laptop aside and curls up on the bed with Day. It was a little sad, dismantling the pillow fort, but Kent doesn’t think he’ll ever forget how Mads looked after him there.

Mads, who is _bi_. The knowledge is still new enough to be stunning, and Kent has a moment of piercing regret for what might have been, if the world had been kinder to both of them: an alternate timeline where Kent wasn’t abused and Mads wasn’t beaten and the league made itself a more welcoming place a crucial decade earlier, so that both of them might’ve met that first year as out, undamaged players. What would that have been like, he wonders? What new trouble might they have gotten into as whole, fearless rookies wingmanning for each other?

“Penny for your thoughts?” Day murmurs.

Kent sighs. “Just thinking about Mads. We played together all these years and never knew how much we have in common. It makes me wonder how many more of us are out there; how many guys are still alone, or closeted, or denying they’re even gay.”

“You’ve never met any other queer players?”

“Not besides Jack. Not that I knew, anyway.” Kent bites his lip, considering. “I think… maybe, if I sat down and really thought about it now, with the power of hindsight, I’d be able to make some pretty accurate guesses about some guys in the league, in the AHL, but I guarantee I’d still be missing people. Guys like us, we get pretty good at hiding, and if there’s a secret queer NHL grapevine, then I’m out of that loop. I just hope it’s better for the younger players, the guys still coming up.” He thinks about the high draft prospect who came out after he and Jack did, and feels his stomach clench at the thought of him copping backlash for it. “I just want things to get better, you know? The NWHL is so far ahead of where we are, and I want that and more for players like us. For _all_ of us.”

“Me, too,” says Day, and then they don’t talk for quite some time, except in the language of touch.

There’s no team dinner that evening, and while Kent gets a shy text from Hells asking if he and Day would like to come out with him and a few others, he politely declines in favour of something more intimate. Some days, his meal plan just needs to fall in a well and die, and as this is clearly one of them, he has zero compunctions about finding a proper Mexican place and treating both him and Day to as much cheese, carbohydrates, churros and margaritas as they can comfortably consume. The meal is blissful, perfect, and they go for a long walk afterwards, arm in arm as they talk about everything and nothing.

By the time they get back to the hotel, Kent is full, relaxed and just the right side of sleepy. He and Day shower together, go through their respective evening rituals and then slide into bed, putting something mindless on TV for the sake of background noise.

Kent falls asleep in minutes. He sleeps deep and easy, untroubled by the nightmares that plagued him yesterday, and when his morning alarm goes off, he wakes with an armful of warm, pliant Day.

“You want to come to morning skate?” he murmurs teasingly, knowing what the answer will be. “Or should I let you hibernate?”

“Hibernate, please,” Day mumbles, burrowing back into the blankets.

Kent kisses him fondly, then gets up and gets ready for breakfast with the team. He’s only a little uneasy about the prospect of seeing Swoops, Javvy and Hells, but makes himself relax on the lift ride down to the dining room. He trusts his friends, and he’s feeling immeasurably better for time spent in Day’s company and a good night’s sleep.

Stepping into the room, he makes a point of checking in with every team member who’s already present, noticing with only a minor pang of guilt how relieved Yaks and Petty are to see him acting normally. Hells looks apprehensive, but Kent squeezes his shoulder and smiles, and the rookie smiles right back. Javvy is a little trickier: he’s clearly feeling guilty, a pained look in his eyes when Kent asks how he slept.

“I’ve felt better,” Javvy says, voice a little rough. “Parser –”

“It’s okay,” Kent says. And then, very belatedly, “I didn’t think to say it yesterday, but you can talk to Lia about all this, if you want. It’s only fair, given Racker can talk to Zora.”

Javvy’s mouth hangs open a little a that, like he doesn’t quite know what to say. Kent takes the opportunity to look around for Mads, and has just spied him over in the far corner when a flurry of laughter and catcalls breaks out near the doorway. Kent looks up, as does Javvy, and does a mental double-take at the sight of a blushing, sheepish Swoops walking in, his neck covered in hickeys.

“Get it, Swoops!” yells Petty, as Yaks hoots an encore. “When did you find time to pick up, huh?”

It’s a question Kent badly wants answered, a flare of white-hot anger burning through his core. _That’s_ what Swoops did, after yesterday? He went the fuck out and got _laid?_

“I hope you showed her a good time,” chirps Fender. “It’s been long enough!”

“Him,” says Swoops, shakily. His eyes search out Kent’s, fists clenching and unclenching by his sides, and Kent must be hearing things, there’s no way Swoops just said what he thinks he said – 

“What?” says Judo, still laughing. “What do you –”

“I’m gay,” says Swoops, the words cracking out of him loud, too loud.

The whole room goes deadly silent.

Kent stares at Swoops, who’s staring at him. Swoops swallows, his eyes red-rimmed, his hair a mess.

“I’m gay,” he says again, trembling. “I didn’t know before. But. But I do, now. So.” He gives a strange little laugh and gestures at his marked-up neck. “He, not she.”

Kent moves without any awareness of it, stepping away from Javvy’s side and closing the gap between him and Swoops, until they’re standing together in the middle of the dining room, the whole team looking on.

Kent looks at Swoops – at _Swoops_ , his best friend – and wants to think the whole thing’s a joke, because how the fuck did he miss _this_ , too? But it’s not a joke, because Swoops looks torn and free and scared in a way that Kent knows in his fucking _soul_ ; in a way that no oblivious straight boy could fake. 

“I’m so sorry,” Swoops whispers. “I’m sorry for everything.”

Kent’s throat is dry as sand, his anger evaporated. “Swoops –”

“It was wrong,” says Swoops, all shaking and small. “What I did. It was selfish and wrong and bad. It’s just, you don’t have parents. I do. And I think – I needed – part of me thought –”

 _Oh, Christ._ “You thought,” Kent says, voice raw, “that if a family could accept _me_ , then yours could accept you, too.”

Swoops bites his lip and nods, eyes wet. He laughs again, or maybe sobs. “I didn’t even know what’s what I meant by it. And that doesn’t make it right, I know, but –”

“Swoops,” says Kent, who absolutely _will not_ cry. “You didn’t need a foster-mother to see my family accept me. _You’re_ my family, you and the Aces. You already saw that happen.”

“Oh,” says Swoops. He hesitates. Whispers, “I still hurt you, though.”

“Yeah,” says Kent, softly. “You did.”

Swoops somehow makes himself even smaller at that, shoulders hunching, head ducked all the way down, and Kent isn’t having it; not now, not over this. “But Swoops – Jeff. Hey. You know what?” He grabs Swoops’s arm and squeezes it, hard, until Swoops looks at him. “You’re still my family. My well-meaning, useless gay family.” And then, in a burst of strangled laughter, “God, just come here, will you?”

And he pulls Swoops into a hug.

Swoops hugs back hard, face buried in his shoulder as the whole team cheers around them, banging spoons and other utensils raucously on tables. Kent finds himself glancing at Mads again, only half surprised to see him get out of his seat and head over to join them. Swoops pulls back from the hug with a murmured, “Thanks, Parse,” then follows the line of Kent’s gaze to watch Mads approach. Kent glances between the two of them, taking note of Swoops’s sudden blush, the redness at the tips of Mads’s ears, and has a minor out-of-body experience where his rational brain draws a conclusion that his emotional sense rejects. _Nooo,_ he thinks – half disbelieving, half scandalised – and then Mads has a hand on Swoops’s cheek for all the room to see.

“You’re such a goddamn idiot,” Mads says, breathless, and kisses him.

The team goes momentarily silent and then utterly wild, cheering and yelling and swearing in equal measure. Yaks flings a fried tomato at the pair of them, letting out an unrepentant “HAH!” as it smacks into Swoops’s shoulder. Mads and Swoops break apart at the impact; Swoops looks stunned, while Mads can only muster up a chuckle, his ear-tips still bright red.

“You’re lucky Racker isn’t here,” Fender calls out. “He’d fine the shit out of both of you!”

“Wait, is everyone gay now?” Judo asks, confused and plaintive. “Not that I’m complaining, I just wanna keep track.”

“Shut up, Judo,” says Javvy, not unkindly. “Let’s just enjoy the moment, eh?”

It’s a testament to how shaky Swoops is that he doesn’t even try to respond to any of this; just flips the bird in vaguely Fender’s direction while staring, awestruck, at Mads. Then Hells is there, flinging himself at Swoops’s back in a tackle-hug that does more to lighten the mood than Yaks’s tomato, at least in Kent’s eyes. He hates the thought of Hells and Swoops being mad at each other, especially on his account.

 “I love my useless gay hockey dads!” Hells says loudly, ruffling Swoops’s hair. And then, in a quieter voice, “You’re still an idiot, though.”

“I know,” says Swoops. He sighs, looking very much like he’s about to launch into another self-flagellating speech, and as much as Kent might’ve enjoyed that yesterday, he finds it’s not what he wants right now.

“Breakfast,” he says in his Captain Voice, looking mock-sternly at all of them. “There’ll be plenty of time for important personal conversations when we’re all stuck on a plane together; right now, we need to fuel up to beat the Islanders.” He pitches his voice to carry. “You assholes hear that? Stop throwing food and start shoving it in your ugly faces!”

“Yes, cap!” the Aces chorus back.

Kent shakes his head, fondly exasperated. “See?” he says to Swoops. “Family.”

“Family,” Swoops echoes back, and lets Mads lead him over to the buffet.

 

*

 

“Swoops and Mads,” says Day –disbelieving, for all that it’s now his fifth reiteration of the concept since Kent returned to the bedroom. “Swoops and _Mads_? _Really?_ ”

Kent laughs. “You’re really not moving past this any time soon, are you?”

“I’m not! I am _very stuck on it_ ,” Day says emphatically. “Because Swoops being gay, yes, that actually makes _so much sense_ to me _–_ ”

“Right?” says Kent. “He’s hopeless at being straight, I can’t believe we never realised.”

“Exactly!” Day exclaims. “He’s useless, and an idiot, and a _total hot gay_ _mess_. A mess that Mads, who’s a very different _kind_ of mess, is now fucking. And that is where my brain stalls out, because no. _No_. What? I mean! You’re _allowing_ this? Kent! A disaster gay dating a disaster bi does not make for a stable relationship!”

“Are you referencing something?” Kent teases, putting his hands on Day’s hips. “I feel like you’re referencing something.”

“Memes,” says Day, archly. “I am referencing _memes_ , Kent Parson, because even the conventional wisdom of the internet knows that this is a _terrible idea_.”

“So am I, on paper,” Kent points out. He smiles at Day as he says it, thumbing the skin above his waistband. “Maybe it’ll all get screwed up, but they’ve both gone their whole adult lives in the closet; I’m not about to smack their wrists for helping each other out of it.”

“Quit being so _reasonable_ ,” Day grumbles, kissing his cheek. “Fine. They have my provisional blessing, even if I do still want to strangle Swoops a bit. Or a lot.”

“If it makes you feel any better, he nearly fainted when I told him he’s on Zora’s shitlist.”  

“Hmm,” says Day, in a tone that says he’s secretly placated but wants to keep feeling huffy for a while yet, like Kit when she’s mad at Kent for buying the wrong brand of cat food. Kent rolls his eyes and kisses him, and it’s only with extreme reluctance that he pulls away.

“You sure you don’t want to come watch us at warmups?”

“Only if you think it’ll help to have me there.”

Kent considers saying it would, then sighs and shakes his head. “No. No, I should – I need to at least try and go by myself, not use you as a security blanket. But I’ll call or text if I need you, okay? I promise.”

“Good,” says Day, and kisses him again. “Now go play hockey.”

 

*

 

Swoops doesn’t sit with Mads on the bus, though a dumb part of Mads wishes he would. Instead, Hells drags his newly-out housemate into the seat beside him, clearly wanting to talk; Swoops flashes Mads a dazed smile, and Mads returns it as best he can, taking his own seat next to Parse.

Though the rest of the bus is raucous, Parse waits until they’ve pulled away from the hotel to grin at him and say, “I thought you weren’t ready to come out yet.”

“So did I,” Mads admits. “But then Swoops just –” he waves a hand, “– did what he did, and I thought, shit. If _he_ can be brave about it, and _you_ can be brave about it, then what the hell’s my excuse? Besides, it seemed easier than actually having to, like, _say_ anything, you know? Just get up, do the thing, and it’s over. Like ripping tape off your leg-hair.”

Parse snorts wryly. “Yeah, just like that.” He waits a beat, then says, “Still, though. I’m proud of you.”

Mads’s ears burn. “Thanks.”

“And. Uh.” Kent hesitates. “You, uh. You and Swoops – whatever you’re doing together, you know that’s cool with me, right? Just, you know. Be safe, and be good to each other, and if you ever, uh, need to talk about it, you know where to find me.”

Mads’s whole _face_ feels like it’s on fire. “Sure thing, cap,” he says. “And, uh. You know. I won’t – we won’t let, uh… the things we’re doing, uh, fuck with team chemistry or whatever.”

Kent raises an eyebrow. “In situations like this, I’m reliably informed that it’s a good idea to _define the relationship_.”  

“I’ll keep that in mind,” says Mads, dryly.

They fall silent for a moment, snatches of laughter and conversation floating around them. From where he’s sitting, Mads can just see the back of Swoops’s head, a tousle of brown hair sticking up above the seat.

“I wish –” Kent starts, then stops again.

Mads looks at him, assessing. “What?”

“Just.” Kent’s mouth quirks. “You, me, Swoops – imagine what it might’ve been like, if we’d all been out from the beginning. If we’d been allowed to be out to everyone.”

Mads’s first impulse is to say that all their dicks would’ve ended up on Deadspin within a fortnight; his second impulse is to think it through properly. He chews his lip as he does so, frowning.

“I don’t know,” he says at last. “Like, obviously it would’ve been cool if the league was better about shit when we started, but I’m not sure how much that would’ve changed for us. I mean, the way I grew up, my dad… he’s the reason I started out closeted, you know? And Swoops, he kept telling me how his parents aren’t homophobic or anything; his family’s just so white bread that they never thought about that stuff, so he didn’t either. And you… I mean, I don’t wanna assume or anything, but it seems like you would’ve needed that shit in juniors and earlier more than the NHL, to have wanted to come out as a rookie. Like, that – that fucker, what he did to you, he got in your head ‘cos you didn’t know shit about being gay except what he told you, you know? So you would’ve needed someone giving you, like, actual facts and shit even with YCP. I don’t know, I’m  not trying to harsh the vibe or anything, or say the league being better wouldn’t have helped us get here sooner, but it’s like… all the stuff that fucks guys like us up, it happens way before we make the show. Being here just, I don’t know, locks us into it, somehow. Like, it’s such a big deal and we’re all so scared of being sent down that we don’t wanna take the risk of being different, of giving anyone any little thing they can hold over us or chirp us for. So, I dunno. Maybe it would’ve been better, that we knew we had the option of coming out, but we’d still have had our shit to work through first, you know?”

He winces at that, internally berating himself for killing the mood, but when Parse speaks again, his tone is thoughtful.

“You’re right,” he says, blinking. “Shit, you’re right, and that’s fucking _smart_ , Mads.”

“Shut the fuck up, I’m not _smart_.”

“Yeah, dude. You kind of super are.” Parse bumps their shoulders together. “Seriously. I never looked at it like that before, but you’re right: trying to make the NHL change all the systems under it, putting YCP up front – it’s like, uh. What’s it called? Like trickle-down economics, but with social stuff. It looks good from the outside, and it makes things a bit better for guys in the league _now_ , but it won’t change shit for the kids still working their way up from the bottom, not unless they’ve got adults at their level to support them from the outset. Which, you know, I guess YCP can help with some of that stuff, but it’s not… it’s more global than that, right? It can’t just be hockey, and it can’t just be all sports, though that’s probably a better place to start. Shit just needs to get better for everyone.” He pauses, grinning ruefully. “Which, it’s not like I didn’t know that already, but I guess I’ve just… fallen into the habit of thinking hockey is separate to everything else, you know? Off in its own little box, with its own weird problems. But it’s really not, is it?”

“We’re all in this together, huh?” says Mads, only just resisting the urge to sing-song the half-remembered lyrics.

“Something like that, yeah.”  

Just then, Javvy pops his head over the seat in front of them, waggling his phone.

“Okay,” he says, looking at Mads, “so, not to interrupt or diminish the moment or anything, but I want to know if it’s cool to tell Lia about you being into dudes and also apparently hooking up with Swoops, because Racker’s not here and I need to discuss today with an actual human adult before my head explodes.”

Mads laughs. “Go ahead.”

“Oh thank _god_ ,” says Javvy, and falls back into his seat again, texting furiously.  

“So,” says Parse, “all gay shit aside, are we gonna fuck the Isles up tonight or what?”

“Bro,” says Mads, grinning. “Parser. We’re gonna _destroy_ them.”

 

*

 

The team’s ebullience during warmups carries over through the afternoon and into the game itself. Kent is so fucking proud of his guys – of _all_ his guys, not just Swoops and Mads – that he feels almost high on it. The Aces are electric on ice: the Isles do their best, but the whole team is functioning like a single psychic unit, passes firing tape to tape and finding the back of the net like nobody’s business. The Aces are leading 3-0 at first intermission, 5-1 at second and end up winning 7-2 in an absolute mullering. The whole team crashes into the boards, a screaming celebration that feels to Kent like vindication, like exorcism: like absolute, inviolate proof that being queer in the NHL isn’t a handicap – it’s an _asset_.

He does media with a happiness he’s hardly felt since leaving Vegas, grinning through his shower – and through the chirp-fest surrounding Mads and Swoops, who keep unsubtly eyefucking one another and then blushing whenever it’s pointed out – until his face starts to hurt. He thinks of Day, waiting for him out in the tunnel, and hurries back into his game-day suit.

And then, outside the locker room, he finds Michael Sparkman waiting for him.

Kent freezes in place, staring at this barely-familiar man, and knows instantly, in some undefinable way, that his life has just changed.

“What is it?” he asks. And then, in a burst of panic, “Noah, oh god. Is Noah okay?”

“Noah’s fine,” says Michael. He looks utterly exhausted, washed-out pale with bags under his eyes, but there’s a gleam in them, too, which is the only reason Kent isn’t already on his way to a panic attack. “I just – I thought you should know. We got him. Or, well – we got enough to get him, and then he did the rest himself.”

Kent tries to parse that sentence and fails. “What?”

Michael’s smile is sharp as victory. “Gary’s dead,” he says. “He killed himself.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this update's been so long in coming! I've had other IRL writing commitments to deal with, but I'm hoping to finish this fic up quickly now :)


	15. Chapter 15

Several minutes and an urgent phonecall later finds Kent, Day and Michael Sparkman sequestered in a conference room, Kent gripping Day’s hand as Michael relates what happened.

“After yesterday,” he begins, “after what Noah said, I couldn’t stop thinking about it; about what you told me. My own kid… and then I thought, how was Noah meant to talk to him, to say he was okay with –” he shudders, biting down on the word, “– with _coaching_? So I asked him, you know, I said, _buddy, it’s okay to tell me, but I need to know_. And Noah, he was so worried I was gonna be angry, because he’d broken a rule, right? Because we got him a phone, my wife and I, just a month or so ago – it was a big deal, he’s only nine, but we wanted him to have a way to call us if something happened at practice, or on the bus, or for me to call him if something came up at work and I was running late. So. He has a phone, but he’s not meant to use it for anything other than emergencies. But Gary gave him a number to text. He had it saved. And he thought I’d be mad at him for it, so he didn’t want to tell.”

Michael pauses, throat working hard. Kent can’t feel anything but Day’s hand on his; the thundering of his heart.

“So,” says Michael, after a moment. “So, I took Noah’s phone, and pretended to be him. Got a text back. More than one. Got him talking. And then I took it to one of my buddies who does our tech stuff and asked him to trace it. Told him… told him I’d found that conversation on Noah’s phone, just as it was; that I was worried about who he was talking to, and for obvious reasons.” He pauses, staring at both of them, and Kent’s pulse skips with the enormity of the confession: Michael _lied to his colleagues_ to get Gary caught, and trusts Kent enough to tell him so.

Michael lets out a breath and continues. “So the number went to a burner cell, of course. But we knew it had been active recently; knew he wouldn’t have had time to change the number. So we sent a text  and tracked the phone’s location when he replied – I don’t really understand how all that stuff works, geolocation and wifi, but Gary was never a great shakes with technology, either. Dumb fucker probably just figured that he’d bought it anonymously, so he was anonymous using it – not like he had any reason to know _we’d_ know who was on the other end; probably figured he’d get a heads up if he needed to ditch it. But he was _in the fucking precinct_ , that’s what got him. Sitting at his fucking desk in the bullpen, texting me, thinking he was texting Noah.”

“Holy shit,” Kent whispers. Day squeezes his fingers; Kent grips back, hard.

“So we walk right up to him, me and my tech buddy, and I don’t have to tell you, I didn’t need to pretend to be pissed. He had the phone in his _fucking hand_ , Kent – the whole fucking _room_ saw him drop it when we came in. And I’m yelling at him, asking him what kind of pedo shit he’s into, what the fuck makes him think he can lay a hand on my nine-year-old son, and _everyone was listening_ , everyone just – staring. And our boss comes out at the commotion, asks what the fuck is going on, so I tell him. And he’s pissed as fuck at what’s happening, that we’re showing up a _fellow officer_ in front of his peers, but then he sees the texts, and my buddy’s right there to prove that I’m all hot in the moment, that I’ve only just found all this out – and I tell him, I say _, sir, I’ll make a public written apology to Detective Stanton – I’ll even go on unpaid leave as punishment if I’m overreacting – but all I want is to search his home computer, because what’s on that cell, it’s grounds for a warrant anyway_.

“So our boss. My boss. He looks at Gary and he says, _I’m sure it’s nothing, but our department’s coming up for review, and it’ll look better all round if we don’t have a warrant against an officer on record. Just let us look around and get it over with_. And what the fuck can Gary say to that, with everyone listening in? So he says, _sure, how about tomorrow –_ trying to get himself time to tidy up, and so fucking obvious about it, you know? All smiles, like he’s expecting our boss is gonna handwave the whole thing anyway, only then our boss looks pissed, and he tells him, _Why wait? We’re all free right now,_ and he just went _white_ , Kent. Like it honestly never occurred to him that we’d _care;_ that we wouldn’t all help to cover his ass. And our boss is getting angrier and angrier the more he tries to put it off, so he has to take us – me, the boss, my tech buddy and one other officer for _objective recording_ , or whatever that shit is –” he makes a cutting gesture, words coming faster now, “– and off we go. And we get to his house, and we go in. And I realise, right as we’re walking through the door, that I’ve never been to Gary’s place before; that I don’t think any of us have.”

He stops as abruptly as he sped up. A heavy pause follows. Kent’s hair stands on end. Michael stares at the flat, scuffed surface of the conference desk, and when he speaks again, his voice is soft.

“We left the other officer with Gary in the den. Me, my boss, my buddy – we went through to his bedroom. Found his computer. Found what was _on_ his computer. And in – in the bathroom, too, in the cabinets. And in a box under the bed.” He looks at Kent, his expression raw and bleak. “We saw enough.”

Kent shudders all over, an awful noise in his throat. “Oh, god.”

“He knew,” says Michael, heavily. “He knew from the minute we walked in there what we were going to find. And as soon as we came back out again – our boss never asked him to disarm – he looked at us, and said we wouldn’t understand, then ate his gun and fired.”

If Kent was standing, he’d go to his knees; as it was, he goes lightheaded. “He’s really dead? He’s gone?”

“He’s really dead,” says Michael. “And what he had on his computer… we handed it all over to our guys who specialise in that stuff, and they reckon they can use what he had for a sting, get some other fuckos he knew online. And –” his voice falters, hands flexing on the table-top as he looks at Kent, “– and none of it would’ve happened if not for you. And I just. I needed you to know, I had to tell you, because the whole precinct is fucked up about this, about how everything happened, so they’re going to do their best to hush the whole thing up, keep it an _internal matter_ –” angry sarcasm on those words, “– and that doesn’t sit right with me. If he’d lived… trials against cops are a circus. Victims get dragged through the mud, everything gets raked over again, and I’m not saying I don’t believe in the justice system, but some of the fuckers in charge of it should be a little more subject to it, if you know what I’m saying. But still. _Still_ , I don’t know – I’ve got no way of knowing how many people he really hurt, what would’ve been better for them or for you. But I can’t be sorry he’s dead. I don’t regret that.”

“I don’t, either,” Kent scrapes out. His cheeks are wet, he realises belatedly; he doesn’t know when he started crying, but he wipes the tears away now, salt on his lips and a sting of ragged laughter. “He deserved to die. And I’m – I’m fucking thankful you listened to me. You _believed_ me, and you did something about it. And now he’s dead.”

“And now he’s dead,” says Michael. “He won’t hurt anyone ever again.”

Kent presses his face to Day’s shoulder, and smiles, and laughs until he sobs.

 

*

 

Michael Sparkman leaves, and Day sits with Kent in the conference room, holding him tight. Kent is silent now, fingers knotting and twisting in the fabric of Day’s shirt, and Day feels so full – of anger; of love; of hope – that he is, for once in his life, completely lost for words. Kent shifts against him, breathing quietly into the hollow of Day’s throat. Day strokes his hair, toying with the short, silky strands at the base of his neck, and when Kent finally lifts his head, he’s halfway to smiling.

“He’s gone,” he says, red-eyed. “He won’t touch me again. He can’t _hurt_ me again, or anyone else. And – and I can tell. I can _tell people_ , Day. If I need to – if I want to – I can tell people, and he can’t come after me.”

Day strokes his cheek. “Do you want to do that?”

Kent laughs. “I don’t know. I just… it’s an option, now. Knowing I couldn’t bring charges against him because of that fucking statute, that was… god, it was such a _weight_ , you know? On top of everything else, I always knew that if it came out publicly, it’d be my word against his; that, even if people believed me, there’d be nothing anyone could do unless some other victim came forward. But he’s dead, now. I’m not – you heard Michael, they’re going to use his logins and shit to try and catch other guys like him, so I’m hardly going to have a press conference or anything _now_ , but I just… in the future, one day. If I needed to, or wanted to. I could _talk_.” And then, in a tiny, awed voice, “There’s nothing left to scare me.”

Day kisses him, unable to keep from doing so a moment longer. Kent kisses back greedily, clutching at every part of Day he can reach, and is halfway to climbing into his lap when someone knocks on the conference room door.

Groaning, Kent calls out, “Who is it?”

“Um. Lucy?” comes the timid reply. “I, uh, I don’t want to interrupt, but – can I come in, please?”

“Sure,” says Kent, clearly surprised. He sits back down in his seat, hands smoothing surreptitiously at his suit. Day feels a brief flicker of annoyance, but gratitude and curiosity squash it almost instantly. He hasn’t met Lucy, the social media intern, before, but as she’s the one who made the call to keep Kent’s reunion with Gary off the internet, he’s fundamentally predisposed to like her.

The girl who enters reminds him a little of Zora: brown-skinned, delicate-looking, and barely over five feet tall, her kinky hair sunstreaked and bound in a puffy tail. Her eyes are big and black under thick, neat brows, emphasised by a distinctive pair of circular glasses set in thin gold frames. She’s wearing an Aces home jersey, cuffed jeans, black Timbs and a tremulous expression.

“What is it?” Kent asks, when she doesn’t say anything.

Lucy twists her hands together. “Um,” she says, voice shaky. “I just – so I just. I got a phone call, a little while ago? Like. From my school, you know. And they said.” She makes a hiccupping noise, and Day is startled to realise that she’s fighting off tears. “They said that my – my student loans had been paid, and all my tuition. Just. Everything paid off, all at once. And they said –” she takes a shuddering breath, “– they said it was the Aces who did it, all paid for through front office, but front office said a player must have done it when I asked, only they didn’t know who, because it’s not like the organisation just randomly forks out _a hundred and sixty grand_ for an intern. And.” She smiles at them, radiant and wavering, even as her voice chokes up. “And I just. I just wanted to say thank you, thank you _so much_ , you don’t – you have _no idea_ how much this means, I’m the first in my family ever to go to college and my uncle had to cosign my loans, and it’s just, it’s been so _stressful_ wondering how I’ll ever pay them back, but it’s all paid _off_ and I’m – I’m –”

She bursts into tears, and Kent is out of his chair in an instant, coming over to put his hand on her shoulder. Lucy flings her arms around him, hugging tight, and Kent looks briefly startled before hugging her back, casting a mystified look at Day as he does so.

Lucy regains her composure fairly quickly, wiping her cheeks and stammering apologies for creasing Kent’s suit, which Kent, being Kent, waves off as unimportant.

“You’ve done awesome work for the Aces,” he tells her. “And the other day, with what happened in the locker room, you made a really important judgement call. You deserve good things, okay? I bet your family’s proud of you.”

Lucy lets out a shocked noise. “I have to tell them!” she exclaims, bouncing on her heels. “Oh my god, I just – I need to call my mom, like, right now, but I just – I had to say thank you, I had to let you know –”

“Go call your mom,” Kent says, smiling at her. “And keep up the good work, huh?”

“I will,” Lucy babbles, “I will, I promise, I just – oh my god –”

She practically runs from the room, her phone already at her ear.

Day rises, coming to stand beside Kent. “Did you pay her loans off?” he asks, curious.

“No,” says Kent. “But I can guess who did.”

Day’s mouth falls open. “ _Swoops?_ ”  

“Must’ve been,” says Kent. He sounds faintly in awe of the gesture; Day doesn’t blame him. “I mean, unless she’s saved someone else’s ass and we don’t know about it, I can’t think who else would’ve thought to.”

“Goddamit,” Day mutters. “He’s really making it hard to stay mad at him.”

Kent slips an arm around his waist and grins. “Welcome to knowing Swoops. He’s like a Labrador puppy that destroys your house and then sits there looking adorable in the wreckage.” And then, in a sudden burst, “We should go out tonight. With the team, I mean, to celebrate. That game – that was a _fucking_ good game, and Gary’s dead, and Swoops did something genuinely good, and two of my teammates are dating and the world didn’t end, and we all deserve to feel happy about it.”

Day kisses his cheek, immensely fond and proud and so fucking in love, his ribs ache with it. “Sounds like a plan, _cariño_.”

 

*

 

Half the team has taken over the top floor of a hipster bar somewhere in Brooklyn, and Mads is on the pleasant cusp of tipsy and just drunk enough. From where he’s sitting, he can see Parse and Day laughing with Javvy, Parse all tucked up under his boyfriend’s arm and looking as happy as Mads has ever seen him. Which, all things considered, is no great surprise, given the other news that Parse had relayed privately to them earlier, about Gary being dead. Swoops was so fucking stunned, he’d almost fallen over; Javvy had asked a bunch of responsible adult questions, like would there be media around it (unlikely now, possibly in the future; some cop would keep them updated); and Hells had just looked relieved. Mads himself is mainly happy to see Parse smiling again: yeah, there’s bound to be fallout down the road for all of them to deal with, but fuck, it’s been a hell of a week. They all deserve to treat this like a win.

“Shove over, will you?” says Swoops, arriving at the booth with a drink in each hand. They’re cocktails, colourful and probably each with a different hipster name, but Mads rolls his eyes and moves down for him anyway. Swoops slides a drink in front of him: something mixed with chocolate, by the looks of things, and Mads is hardly gonna say no to _that_. The fact that Swoops is now sitting so close that their legs are pressed together is just a bonus.

Yaks and Petty, who are sitting opposite, stare at the pink and green monstrosity Swoops has bought for himself.

“Flavoured vodka is a _sin_ ,” says Petty sternly. “Or at the very least, not _actual vodka_.”

Swoops grins, taking an obnoxiously long sip from his twirly straw. “It tastes like watermelon candies,” he says. “Wanna try some?”

Petty fake-gags, while Yaks makes a face like Swoops just offered to punch his sainted mother. Mads feels stupidly fond.

Across the room, Hells is talking animatedly to Lucy, the social media girl. She was working earlier, taking snaps and recording mini-interviews with a bunch of different guys, but now she’s off the clock, head tilted up as she grins at Hells. She’s a clever slip of a thing, and every time she says something, Hells does this dorky, whole-body laugh and scrubs a hand through his hair like it might stop him blushing, even though it doesn’t.

“What do you think of that?” Mads asks Swoops, gesturing towards the pair with his chocolate whatever. He takes a sip in the process; it’s cold and sweet, but actually pretty good.

Swoops’s smile softens. “I think the student has become the master.”

“Master?” scoffs Petty. “You were _never_ the master.”

“Chirping me is homophobic,” Swoops says, archly.

Yaks groans theatrically. “You gay one day, and already nonsense.” He points a stern finger at Mads. “This your fault, for encouraging with sex!”

“He’s right,” says Petty, as Swoops chokes on his cocktail. “There’ll be no living with him now.”

“You signed up for this,” Mads says, patting Swoops on the back until he can breathe again. “Shit, _I_ signed up for this, too.”

“It’s a brave new world,” Swoops says, and promptly turns red when Mads puts a hand on his thigh.

As Yaks and Petty keep up their chirping, Mads leans back and sips his drink. There’s nothing special about the moment, except that everything is. He’s got Swoops, and Parse has Day, and Hells has got at least a shot with Lucy, if the way she keeps touching his wrist is anything to go by, and the Aces have each other. He’s wasted a lot of time being torn up about Danno; about all the old, ugly shit in his life, but for the first time in months, Mads feels like he’s truly moving forwards. He still needs to have a more detailed talk with Swoops about what they’re doing together, and he’s got plenty of new stuff to work through with Mary, but he’s out to his team and friends with his captain, and maybe things can get better, after all.

On impulse, he leans over and kisses Swoops on the cheek. Swoops completely loses the thread of whatever he was saying, while Yaks and Petty make dire threats about fineable offences.

“Yeah, yeah,” says Mads, and puts an arm around Swoops’s shoulders, thrilling a little as he leans into the contact. “Upshut your fuck, Yasha.”

Yaks opens his mouth to protest, then seems to think better of it. Instead, he casts a quick glance at Parse, and says, hesitantly, “Parser seems much better, now.”

“He was sad, the past few days,” says Petty. “We were worried. But it looks like everything’s fixed.”

“As fixed as anything ever is,” says Mads, and smiles at his captain's laughter.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's over! Thank you guys so much for following along with this - I've really loved writing it :)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Lick Your Heart (And Taste Your Health) [PODFIC]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14205837) by [read by Khashana (Khashana)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khashana/pseuds/read%20by%20Khashana), [sysrae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sysrae/pseuds/sysrae)




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